Yokogawa Electric Corporation has been awarded a contract by Shell ExxonMobil joint venture Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM) to equip the giant Groningen gas field with Foundation Fieldbus instrumentation and control systems.
Biggest ever
The contract is for the replacement of a conventional DCS with a state-of-the-art digital control system based on Fieldbus technology proposed by Yokogawa.
The contract, valued at €38 million is though to be one of the largest Fieldbus-based digital control systems in the world. Ultimately, 29 clusters and 296 gas wells will be controlled and operated remotely from a central control room. Fieldbus technology reduces both the amount of wiring required for equipment installation and the number of field devices that must be installed. In addition, it reduces the amount of engineering work such as start up, construction and field work, and enables both predictive maintenance and remote troubleshooting.
Cost reduction
Fieldbus is seen by NAM as an enabler to operational and maintenance benefits. It is anticipated that NAM will be able to reduce its operational and maintenance costs by more than 1 million euro over the next five years.
10th anniversary
Fieldbus, an open, non proprietary system celebrated its 10th anniversary this month. Fieldbus regroups instrumentation vendors and oil majors including ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco and Shell.
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