OSIsoft 2014 User Conference, San Francisco

Petronas expands PI System infrastructure. Chevron upgrades to PI web parts. More from Hess and cloud-data provider Industrial Evolution. MaraDrill adds Coresight and Spotfire. PG&E super-sizes video wall. Suncor’s journey ‘from historian to infrastructure.’ Pemex Refining’s game changing PI AF proof of concept. Pemex on pipeline PI deployment.

Musreen Azwan outlined Petronas’ migration from a ‘stagnant’ data architecture reliant on phone calls and manual data entry into spreadsheets to a secure, PI system-based real time data infrastructure. The new system provides early warning of equipment failure and safe operating limits displays with PI web parts and the Excel data link. Comparing real time data with historical records has enabled Petronas to avoid five unplanned shutdowns in 2013. PI scope is expanding rapidly and, by 2015, should cover 46 assets and a grand total of 800 thousand tags.

Ernest Garner and Tara Willis presented recent upgrades to Chevron’s Gulf of Mexico PI System. With the legacy PI infrastructure it was hard to keep high resolution (5second) data in the PI archive. Various in-house developed work arounds proved hard to maintain. The new system is designed around a PI Asset Framework (AF) server acting as a data consolidator with client applications built from PI SharePoint web parts. The new installation was an opportunity to standardize on data governance, tag names and graphic conventions. Tag names include asset code, well name and are carried through to the SharePoint clients allowing for consistent information display and drill down. The data is also integrated with other Chevron well data sets such as the equipment master and work orders. A comprehensive PI installation manual and operating procedures has also been delivered. On the lessons learned front, latency issues between PI and SharePoint mean it is a good idea to co-locate systems. The project required significant time and resources to identify and standardize control systems’ data. Finally PI WebParts needs its own server dedicated farm, it ‘does not work well in shared SharePoint environments.’

A presentation from Hess’ Tony Goodreau and Industrial Evolution’s Simon Wright showed how IE’s PI-based Gulf of Mexico data hub is used to share process data between joint venture partners and third parties. The IE hub provides connectivity with other operators assets which may be running PI or, in the case of data from an Anadarko facility, a CygNet-based data feed. Hess is in the process of migrating from a VPN-based PI to PI connector on the downstream side of the IE data center to a solution leveraging PI cloud connect (Picc), a web-based customer portal managed by OSIsoft. The Picc has passed most of the trial’s tests but a decision on roll-out is pending further work on data sharing security and scalability. Hess will continue to use IE’s data hub which has been deemed to ‘speed deployment in a PI to PI context.’

Ken Startz provided an update on Marathon’s MaraDrill PI-system based drilling optimization solution. MaraDrill provides weight on bit, RPM and other parameters to remote stakeholders leveraging PI data connectivity to populate spreadsheets at the head office with real time data from factory drilling operations in the Eagle Ford and Bakken shale. The system supports 1 second data rates which show details of, for instance, stick slip, that are below the resolution of conventional drill floor displays. Stick slip mitigation has brought a ‘sustained’ 40% improvement in rate of penetration. PI Coresight provides integration of WellView data and Spotfire analytics. After drilling, further Spotfire studies can be used to model rock strength and optimize future wells and to identify production sweet spots. Drilling optimization has halved Marathon’s drilling time, down from 24 days in 2011 to 12 in 2013. MaraDrill is being rolled out across 25 rigs and is now considered ‘strategic.’

Mel Christopher showed off PG&E’s ‘super-sized’ situational awareness video wall. The September 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion and fire revealed serious limitations in PG&E’s contingency plans. Also inadequacies in the Scada systems made it hard to pinpoint the location of the rupture. This led to a dramatic change in the company’s gas control philosophy and the deployment of tools and systems that were designed for emergencies, not just normal operations. The new system has replaced a limited tabular view of operations with a real time display of pipeline inventory, color coded to show fill and capacity. Other screens show actual vs. forecast volumes and compressor status with PI AF. Hooks to ESRI’s mapping services allow customer calls to be geolocated. The massive video display was delivered by Barco. DST Controls also ran.

Tripti Somani presented Suncor’s PI journey ‘from historian to infrastructure’ supporting energy and environmental regulatory reporting, asset performance monitoring and safety management of its steam assisted gravity drainage heavy oil operations. The most recent development is the adjunct of PI AF which has simplified and speeded Suncor’s software development. For instance, it is common engineering practice to bypass safety systems during special operations such as shutdowns. In a complex operation like a large SAGD development this can involve thousands of bypass tags with custom logic and reporting requirements. To minimize the risks, Suncor has monitored safety critical bypasses with a combination of PI Data Access Server, PI JDBC along with some ETL code and business logic. The solution has improved the governance of critical interlock bypasses and allowed for the tracking and auditing of bypass history. The system is also used in risk mitigation planning.

Carlos Díez presented on Pemex Refining’s standard window on operations. Again, PI AF and WebParts have been used to transform an existing PI system into a platform for applications and reporting. The proof of concept system provides system wide KPIs and a window on operations in critical assets and refineries. Initial results show ‘game changing’ potential for improving asset reliability, safety, and yield.

Ruben Leo presented a more mature Pemex PI usage across its pipeline network. Here real time operations data flows through the PI System, supporting management of the transmission and distribution processes and flags critical events such as rapid pressure or flow variations and unscheduled equipment downtime. Watch the conference videos and download presentations from OSIsoft.

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