Foxboro DCS Systems, a unit of Invensys Process Systems (IPS), has signed a ‘multi-million’ dollar contract with Qatargas, for a major automation upgrade at the Qatar Gas 1 liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City. IPS is to upgrade control processors, gateways, local area networks and network security with its Foxboro I/A Series distributed control system (DCS).
IPS Business Development Manager Mohsen Sorour said, ‘Our goal is to keep our clients’ DCSs running at peak performance levels. The existing DCS is a mixture of legacy Foxboro I/A systems. IPS will migrate these NodeBus-based systems to our latest mesh technology. By retaining existing field wiring and system cabinets and by using online upgrade procedures, we can ensure that plant downtime is minimized.’
Jambulingam Balu, Qatargas Lead I&C Systems Engineer added, ‘The phased upgrade will allow different generations of products and software to operate as one system, ensuring that we can stagger our investments, extend the DCS’s lifetime and enhance plant performance.’ Qatargas currently exports 10 million tons per year of LNG to customers in Japan and Spain. By 2010, annual capacity is expected to increase to 42 million tons.
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