Upgrade automation on North Sea platform

New safety and automation systems using Emerson’s new electronic marshalling with CHARMs technology will help improve oil recovery from Visund platform.

Statoil has awarded Emerson Process Management, a business of Emerson (NYSE: EMR), a €25million ($33m) contract to upgrade safety and automation systems on the Visund oil platform in the Norwegian North Sea.

Photo:Statoil

Previously selected by Statoil as one of its preferred automation and safety suppliers, Emerson will provide integrated safety and automation systems to help the international energy company boost oil recovery and extend the life of the field while also reducing operating costs and minimising safety and environmental risks. The Visund project includes a complex, but seamless changeover from existing to new automation and safety systems (known as a hot cutover) to allow uninterrupted operation of the floating production, drilling, and living-quarters platform.

Emerson will design, configure, and install the new safety and automation systems, as well as provide on-going support services to help ensure continued smooth operations. Aker Solutions of Bergen (N), will provide project-execution support to Emerson.

To help with space and weight limitations on the platform and to offer more design flexibility during the upgrade, Statoil will take advantage of Emerson’s electronic marshalling with CHARMs technology. This technology reduces the complexity of connecting such systems to the hundreds or thousands of measurement and control instruments in typical process operations – a significant advantage because last-minute wiring changes with traditional marshalling can result in high costs and expensive delays. (See our 2009 article on the launch of CHARMS in 2009: CHARMS gets THUMS up in Rijswijk!)

Statoil will also benefit from Emerson’s operator and maintenance interfaces that were designed with human-centered design principles to make it easier for workers to correctly and efficiently assess operational conditions and take appropriate action to ensure production uptime.

Based on Emerson’s PlantWeb™ digital architecture, the integrated solution will include a DeltaV™ digital automation system to monitor and control platform operations, as well as a DeltaV SIS system to perform emergency shutdown functions and to control fire and gas detection systems. Emerson’s AMS Suite predictive maintenance software will be used for instrument commissioning and configuration and to monitor field devices for potential problems that could affect operations.

"Emerson continues to develop its safety and automation business in the North Sea by providing the best technologies and by investing in support services and skilled personnel to help our customers make the most of their operations," said Steve Sonnenberg, president of Emerson Process Management. "We are delighted that Statoil has recognised the value our technologies and experience can bring to the Visund project."

The Visund oil and gas field, which came onstream in 1999, is located 22 kilometres northeast of the Gullfaks field in the Tampen area of the Norwegian North Se

IS electronic marshalling

Electronic Marshalling technology now available for cost-saving, flexible automation in hazardous locations

IS CHARMs extends DeltaV
Electronic Marshalling
to hazardous areas

Building on its innovative Electronic Marshalling and single-channel characterisation module (CHARM) technology, Emerson Process Management's latest offering is intrinsically safe (IS) CHARMs. Electronic Marshalling with CHARMs is a key component of Emerson’s "I/O on Demand" strategy, which provides solutions for all types of I/O interconnection: point-to-point, bussed and wireless.

DeltaV™ Electronic Marshalling delivers a new level of control system I/O performance with unprecedented flexibility and ease of use. The addition of IS CHARMs provides significant savings in system design, installation cost and ease of maintenance expected with Electronic Marshalling, with the added intrinsically safe circuitry for field wiring into hazardous areas, including Zone 1, Zone 0 or Class 1 Div1.

I/O in hazardous areas traditionally requires explosion-proof mounting or isolation barriers. These approaches are costly, require space for additional barrier and termination cabinets, and need on-going maintenance to ensure safety requirements continue to be met. IS CHARMs deliver a reduced footprint and eliminate the need for separate barriers and the associated inter-cabinet wiring. A smaller footprint and fewer connections improves the reliability of the installation and delivers significant cost savings.

The DeltaV CHARM I/O Card (CIOC) supports both conventional and IS CHARMs, providing unprecedented flexibility in control system I/O topology. I/O can be added anywhere it is needed using standard Ethernet infrastructure hardware. Each I/O channel has a dedicated CHARM that provides both signal characterisation and galvanic isolation for intrinsically safe applications. IS barriers are integrated inside the CHARM to provide single channel fault isolation as well as electrical isolation and energy limiting circuitry that meets IEC Ex ia ratings. IS CHARMs signal types include: IS AI 4-20 mA HART®, IS AO 4-20 mA HART, IS DI Namur, and IS DO 24 VDC.

"Electronic Marshalling allows process manufacturers to shorten project schedules, accommodate late project changes, eliminate equipment and cabinets, and dramatically simplify the I/O and marshalling design process," said Peter Zornio, Emerson Process Management’s chief strategic officer. "With the addition of IS CHARMs, we bring that flexibility and savings to some of the most challenging process environments where, arguably, flexibility and reliability are needed most."
Electronic Marshalling can eliminate two-thirds of the wiring and connections needed in conventional marshalling cabinets. Single channel integrity improves plant uptime and makes projects simpler and easier to engineer and implement. The CHARMs technology greatly increases flexibility in assigning I/O types, whether for late project changes, or during start-up, operation or temporary installations. Similarly, it adds flexibility in deciding the best location for I/O– whether in a rack room, remote locations, hazardous areas, or harsh environments.

Asset management suite enhanced

Enhancements extend predictive diagnostic management to motor control centres, drives, and other high value assets through the DeltaV™ digital automation system

AMS™ Suite: Intelligent Device Manager v11, extends Emerson Process Management’s asset management leadership by adding PROFIBUS DP v1 asset support when used with the DeltaV™ digital automation system.

AMS Device Manager v11, a key component of the PlantWeb™ digital plant architecture, will help users streamline maintenance procedures by providing a single application for managing all field devices using HART®, FOUNDATION™ fieldbus, PROFIBUS DP, and IEC 62591 (WirelessHART®) communications. By having a central point to actively manage all asset information, users can take better advantage of predictive diagnostics to ensure equipment reliability and availability.

Adding PROFIBUS DP protocol support provides AMS Device Manager users with an expanded range of assets that are manageable from one application. In addition to instrumentation and valves, users can now communicate with motor starters, motor control centres, drives, and other high value equipment, accessing diagnostics and configurations for more assets than ever before.

Like the previous version, AMS Device Manager v11 delivers significant user experience improvements to operations and maintenance workers in a plant through user-centric interfaces called Device Dashboards. Now including PROFIBUS DP assets, these interfaces deliver clear asset status diagnostics and expert guidance to streamline important and frequently-performed tasks. Maintenance technicians receive more in-depth information to solve device issues.

AMS Device Manager v11 also expands its support to the DeltaV v11 release, including the S-series hardware, CHARMs I/O cards, redundant wireless, and native wireless I/O cards. The DeltaV v11 release features “I/O on demand” to help users eliminate work, reduce project costs and increase operational flexibility.

Users of Emerson's Guardian and Foundation Support will now benefit from the incorporation of AMS Device Manager system details into the Guardian application. Guardian enables users to receive support content that is matched to their individual system. Customised content includes knowledge base articles, Microsoft® updates, system updates, and open support calls. Guardian users extract the most performance from their system with the lowest life-cycle cost and maximum process availability. Guardian is available for the DeltaV digital automation system, Ovation™ expert control system, and standalone AMS Suite users.

"With the addition of PROFIBUS DP support to AMS Suite, Emerson expands the scope of the industry’s most comprehensive asset management package,” said Craig Llewellyn, president of Emerson Process Management’s Asset Optimization business. “The broad capabilities delivered with a focus on ease of use, ensure users experience the full potential of their asset management solution. By expanding the scope of predictive capabilities to help prevent unexpected downtime, we enable users to positively impact the financial performance at their facilities.”

The enhanced versiuon can be used with the Windows® 7 and Windows Server® 2008 operating systems, and continues to support Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. AMS Device Manager v11 includes new versions of popular SNAP-ON™ applications, including AMS Wireless, AMS ValveLink, and QuickCheck.

I/O on demand

Platform with “I/O on Demand” eliminates work, reduces project cost, and increases operational flexibility

New platform also unveils Electronic Marshalling, an industry breakthrough which streamlines 35-year old engineering practices

Emerson Process Management has announced the new S-series platform featuring “I/O on Demand” and Electronic Marshalling. Resulting from an intense focus on Human Centered Design, the S-series headlines the company’s wide ranging innovative technologies in the v11 release of the DeltaV™ digital automation system. The new DeltaV S-series platform sets the industry standard for usability and flexibility.

This new release includes major enhancements to all of the systems I/O processing, operator displays, asset management, batch capability and system security. These combined capabilities reduce customer project complexity, eliminate needless work, and speed system commissioning. They lift Emerson’s PlantWeb® digital architecture to new levels of project and operations performance.

Unique project and operations advantages stem from the S-series I/O on Demand flexibility which allows users to choose among traditional wired, wireless, bussed and Electronic Marshalling.

With I/O on Demand, users decide what type of I/O they want – Wireless, FOUNDATION™ fieldbus, HART®, AI, AO, DI, DO, DP, T/C, or RTD. They decide when they want the I/O, whether for late project changes, during start-up, during operation, or temporary installations; and where they want the I/O, whether in a rack room, remote locations, hazardous areas, safety systems, or harsh environments. The DeltaV S-series enables this freedom of I/O choice and ease of implementation.

Further advantages are realised with Electronic Marshalling, a powerful new technology that streamlines design and installation for users. This unique marshalling approach eliminates two-thirds of the wiring and connections needed by today’s conventional marshalling cabinets. A striking new technology invented with the S-series – new single channel CHARacterisation ModuleS (CHARMS) – make this possible. CHARMS relay I/O information to any DeltaV controller via an Ethernet backbone. This unique electronic communications method eliminates the need for users to wire I/O to specific controller I/O cards. This change can dramatically impact the users experience since it provides single channel integrity and flexibility down to the channel (not I/O card) level. These benefits improve plant uptime, and make projects simpler and easier to engineer and implement.

Beyond making the normal project tasks easier, another significant benefit from Electronic Marshalling is dealing with change. Whereas traditional project engineering requires major time and cost in changing rack-room I/O wiring and terminations, as process design is refined during project execution and construction, the DeltaV S-series hardware with Electronic Marshalling makes changes easy and eliminates re-wiring. Simply terminate the field wires, insert the CHARM and electronically marshal the signals. By adapting to change easily, Electronic Marshalling allows process manufacturers to shorten project schedules, accommodate late project changes, and dramatically simplify the I/O and marshalling design process. This late binding of process changes provides unparalleled adaptability and can help avoid costly, last minute change orders.

According to Larry O’Brien, research director at ARC Advisory Group, “There is a significant amount of cost associated with traditional marshalling methods, which can also limit the changes possible in the engineering and design of the system. The new I/O on Demand capability of Emerson’s DeltaV S-series allows users to add or change I/O types whenever project design changes are made, and they can do it no matter where the I/O is located. Even more important than reducing projects costs is the reduced time to start-up achieved by this kind of an approach.”

The DeltaV S-series makes a major enhancement for WirelessHART™ networks as well. In addition to the existing native wireless integration, the new DeltaV S-series now has fully redundant communications, which together with the mesh wireless networks, provide the highest uptime possible. With these capabilities, users can apply wireless technology to more monitoring and control applications than ever before.

FOUNDATION fieldbus remains the bus of choice for process manufacturers due to its continuous diagnostics, control-in-the-field capabilities, and wiring economies. The S-series furthers these advantages by including a new FOUNDATION fieldbus I/O card that includes an integrated power supply. Unique to Emerson, this new approach eliminates the cost and expense of purchasing, engineering, mounting and maintaining separate bulk power supplies and fieldbus power conditioning modules.

Although the S-series hardware and I/O on Demand are the headliners for the new DeltaV system, there are a number of other significant capabilities in this release. These new capabilities include an entirely new set of visually-focused operator displays that improve operator performance by clear and quick recognition of alerts, and rapid access to the information needed to understand the alert and act in a timely fashion. AMS™ Suite predictive maintenance software is now installed on every DeltaV system, which enables a smooth progression of integrated asset capabilities. Users can start with the AMS Device Configurator, and easily activate AMS Intelligent Device Manager at any time. New capabilities in the release also span batch, reliability, usability and security.

The DeltaV S-series with I/O on Demand, together with other components of the v11 software release, offers a wide-ranging new solution set for process automation users, and is backward compatible with existing DeltaV installations. New projects or expansions, greenfields or modernisations, can all realise advantages from these new capabilities.