Case Study
Edge Computing for Global Liquified Natural Gas Company
Edge Computing in Midstream
How this EPC firm deployed Stratus® Edge Computing to provide 100% uptime for a customer’s LNG terminal operations and onshore/offshore pipeline monitoring
Challenges
- Provide 100% uptime for monitoring of LNG pipeline and terminals
- Enable visibility on operations across onshore, offshore, and enterprise locations
- Commission new system quickly and safely using remote staff
- Develop scalable and repeatable Rockwell Automation-based monitor and control architecture
Solution
- Stratus ztC Edge® platforms in paired, fault tolerant configuration running five VMs
- Rockwell Automation® FactoryTalk® SE
- Rockwell Automation Historian
- Rockwell Automation Thin Client® server with six thin clients
- Engineering workstation
Benefits
- Replaced duplicate systems with a single Stratus ztC Edge Computing platform
- Eliminated unplanned downtime by 100%
- Enabled new levels of reporting to help drive end client business decisions
- Increased safety with automatic shut-off at the pipeline and the ship
- Delivered the new system 20% faster
- Reduced aftermarket support by 50%
This leading EPC firm specializes in onshore and offshore pipeline operations, providing clients with a wide range of engineering and project management services for the gathering, transmission, and processing of hydrocarbon products.
Because of proven success within the industry, a global liquified natural gas company selected them to connect an offshore floating production storage and offloading unit (FPSO) to onshore assets supplying LNG to two sites in the Caribbean. The EPC firm designed the subsea pipelines, coming seven miles onshore to a power generation station – which powers a third of one Caribbean Island – and to boilers powering a large aluminum plant.
Using Stratus Edge Computing, the EPC firm addressed the midstream Oil & Gas company’s requirement for 100% uptime for LNG monitoring of terminal operations. They consolidated offshore and onshore monitoring systems into a fault-tolerant Stratus platform, sharing information via thin clients. The solution provided accurate measurement and data sharing between the FPSO and onshore terminal and visibility to the organization’s headquarters.
By deploying the Stratus Edge Computing, the EPC firm delivered the solution to the LNG company 20% faster, enabled remote management of the system, and reduced aftermarket support by 50%. Thin clients running on the Stratus platform provided real-time remote access to data, reducing the need for on-site staff by 50%.
In the three years since the Stratus platforms were implemented at the Caribbean sites, the LNG organization has experienced zero downtime in its LNG monitoring system.
Centralizing monitor and control for offshore and onshore LNG operations
To supply liquified natural gas to the two sites in the Caribbean, the Oil & Gas company operates a FPSO platform alongside a gas reclassification ship connected via subsea and onshore pipeline. The pipeline travels three miles undersea and four miles onshore to provide LNG for power, providing energy to one-third of the country, and to a bauxite manufacturing plant. The EPC firm designed and constructed the pipeline and terminals in 2019 with a control and automation architecture using Rockwell Automation, standard PCs, and a centralized historian connected via web access to the terminals and at the FPSO. Systems at both sites analyzed the same physical assets, duplicated the human-machine interface (HMI) control system, and shared input/outputs (I/Os).
While effective for monitoring assets from dual locations, anytime an update was required on one system, the team would have to make the same update on the other system. Over time, the systems became less practical to maintain, introducing system downtime. Running applications on standard PCs – that often weren’t reliable – resulted in more downtime and required more frequent upgrades.
“The way the ztC Edge platform tied in with the Cisco switch and Cisco firewall. It was really seamless. There were no issues there at all.”
Vice President of Automation
and Engineering
“Using Stratus Edge Computing saved me a lot of time, heartache, and headache. It has reduced my mean time to provide a system by about 20%. It reduced my aftermarket support by about 50%. During the warranty period, there were very little – if any – issues with the system. No patching or updates for three years. We were impressed with the way Stratus identified the problem before we were even aware of it”
Vice President of Automation
and Engineering
Standardizing control with Stratus and Rockwell Automation
The company sought to achieve 100% uptime for monitoring their LNG terminal operations, turning to the EPC firm to upgrade the original control architecture. They also wanted to standardize the new architecture on Rockwell Automation and apply it across their other Oil & Gas assets.
The EPC firm recommended centralizing the two locations and consolidating software onto a Stratus Edge Computing platform. The team selected the Stratus ztC Edge compute platform in a paired configuration (dual node deployment) to provide fault tolerance. Using the platform’s built-in virtualization, the team installed five virtual machines (VMs), a historian, a thin client server, a storage engine, and the main controller. They also added six thin clients to run the engineering workstation, enabling the platform to deliver the status of the pipeline system and the terminals to the reclassification ship.
To communicate, the different sites and the bauxite plant correspond via a redundant wireless connection and a fiber network that has automatic failover in case either connection is lost. In one instance, a fiber network went down, and the system continued to operate flawlessly on wireless.
Fast deployment and remote commissioning with Stratus
Using Stratus ztC Edge, the EPC firm commissioned the new control architecture quickly despite challenging circumstances. The simplicity of the ztC Edge platform reduced server configuration time by 20% and acted as a control mechanism for several functions during that process. They also built-in a mass balance application, enabling the LNG company to compare flow meters from the ship to those onshore. If discrepancies were detected, the platform could shut down the process to allow operators to course correct. Through the Stratus platform, the firm was also able to implement a shut-off to shut down
the process at both the pipe and the ship, depending on the location of the issue. The ztC Edge platform also automated a temperature profile between the pipeline going underwater and coming on shore to monitor for leaks.
Commissioned in stages, the new control system with the combined heat and power (CHP) system was completed first and the boilers completed next. During the latter phase, the team faced commissioning the plant in the midst of the COVID pandemic and successfully accomplished the commissioning remotely. The EPC firm enabled an Apple iPad and a Galaxy Tab as a thin client in the system, allowing a technician to calibrate or troubleshoot remotely, as the control room wasn’t in operation. With the success of the remote commissioning, the team applied the same approach for teams managing turbine operations and reduced their need to be on-site to monitor operations by 50%.
Operational visibility with no downtime
With monitor and control in place running on the paired ztC Edge nodes, the platform collects and historizes all flow data and the performance of the power generation turbines. A report build function then allows the LNG company to build local reports and push the information to their headquarters. Due to the processing power of the Edge Computing platform, everything that happens in the terminal, the power plant, and the supply of gas can be delivered in comprehensive reports.
From there, employees can download the crucial data into the company’s corporate business systems, making it easy to handle accounting and forecasting tasks.
By deploying Stratus Edge Computing, no less amid a global pandemic, the EPC firm transformed this LNG company’s monitor and control to achieve their goal of 100% uptime while commissioning a system in 20% less time and reducing aftermarket support by nearly 50%. The system has provided the highest level of reliability, surpassing the initial three-year warranty period with no system issues.
Stratus ztC Edge platforms in paired, fault tolerant configuration running:
- 5 VMs
- Rockwell Automation® FactoryTalk® SE
- Rockwell Automation Historian
- Rockwell Automation Thin Client® server with six thin clients
- Engineering workstation
“My advice to others: give Stratus Edge Computing
platforms a good, hard look. The cost may be a little bit more upfront in the direct cost, but it will greatly reduce your indirect cost. Sometimes, nobody looks
at those, but your engineering time, your deployment time, and your aftermarket support time are all significant factors that can sometimes erode your
profits.”
Vice President of Automation
and Engineering
