Two recent events address autonomous operations in the process industries including oil and gas from very different standpoints and granularities. ExxonMobil unveiled its work with on high availability edge computing at the 2022 ARC Advisory Group Industry Forum. On the other side of the pond, the EU Namur standards body has published a summary of its ‘WG Praxis’ work on ‘Remote or autonomous operation projects’ that approaches the field of autonomous operations from a business and management of change perspective.
At the ARC event, Steve Bitar and David Hedge presented ExxonMobil’s
‘journey towards autonomous operations’ and high-availability edge
computing. Today’s control systems are ‘great’ but they are not up to
autonomous operations. ‘We need a next generation platform!’ This
should include interoperable and portable software components and
interchangeable edge devices, probably leveraging something like the EU
‘FOCI’ Far edge open computing interface standard*. The fundamental
problem is the management of parallel information paths across a
distributed control system that may vehicle contradicting data. Rogue
processes may send inconsistent messages that cause system failure.
ExxonMobil’s approach is to deploy middleware in process control and is
investigating the use of the Data Distribution Service (DDS). DDS from
the Object Management Group provides a communications middleware layer
that includes publish and subscribe communications and a quality of
services capability. Adlink**, a commercial
provider of DDS solutions, got a shout out. Bitar showed how the
middleware supports subscriber-based voting with time-gated polls and
offers a better way of selecting the data from conflicting inputs.
Exxon’s real-world hardware tests have shown that sub-second
synchronization is possible with the broker-less middleware. The trial
spanned various Intel and ARM architectures operating independently.
The approach has application in control, optimization and HMI. Exxon is
now working to scale up the middleware approach to fault tolerance,
extending application-based voting to device-based voting. Watch the
presentation here.
* FOCI Factory Automation Edge Computing Operating System Reference Implementation ... ‘Where Factory automation meets edge computing and blockchain technology’.
** Adlink was formerly PrismTech, a Shell spin-out that set out to develop business objects for E&P. It’s a small world!
Meanwhile, the EU Namur standards body has produced an investigation into autonomous operations, co-authored by Shell’s Jacco Opmeer. This, the latest publication from the Namur Work Group 4.2, is termed a Praxis document and as such, offers guidance on the practical aspects of centralized operation of globally distributed plants and/or semi-autonomous operation with reduced staff due to automation and ‘even largely unmanned operations’. The Namur push for automation stems from the anticipated ‘major decimation of personnel due to retirement’, the shortage of skilled labor and safety considerations. Reducing on site personnel is considered a safety goal.
The Groningen gas field is cited as an early example of autonomous operations. The field was a major provider of natural gas to Western Europe. Compression was installed in the later years of the field as meeting the hourly gas demand as timely and accurately as possible became more challenging. In 2002 the operator NAM (a Shell/ExxonMobil joint venture) updated the field’s control systems to reduce manning and emissions, maximize capacity and cut operating costs. This was achieved by deploying independent safety instrumented systems on every installation. When a facility developed a problem it could be shut down remotely from the field-wide distributed control system. The system automatically delivered the hourly nominated gas flow by a combination of automatically opening and closing wells and stopping and starting compressors on the 23 gas plants that make up the Groningen Field.
The complex interplay between autonomous operations and people was illustrated with one project that envisioned sending alarms to the plant operator’s mobile phone. This had to be rejected as it would have ‘disrupted the mandatory 11-hour resting period’. Instead, the plant was automatically shut down in case of an alarm (presumably until the operator woke up!). In the end the plant deployed more gas sensors for leak detection and revised its shutdown procedures.
The Namur report concludes with a reference to the Autonomous Operation Maturity Matrix from Netherlands-based standards body WIB. The Matrix provides insight into ‘states, enablers, and transitions towards next levels of autonomous operations’. The maturity matrix was inspired by the maturity definition from ARC (see above) and has been redefined, refined, and extended by the WIB Autonomous Operations Working Group’s Autonomous Operations Maturity Document.
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