ABB Excels in Complex in Oil & Gas Projects

Summary

Owner-operators and independent exploration & production (E&P) companies in upstream oil & gas face increasingly difficult operational, environmental, and regulatory challenges as they strive to bring natural gas and other hydrocarbons to market safely, efficiently, and profitably. The recent phenomenon of declining oil prices only adds to these challenges.

We've also seen the number of "mega projects" (over $1 billion) increase dramatically over the last decade as owner-operators maximize production from multiple fields. Many offshore projects today include tie-backs to an offshore platform; floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSOs); or floating liquefied natural gas operations (FLNGs).

While the scale, complexity, and distributed nature of these projects call out for well-integrated operations management and remote operations management solutions, most owner-operators currently rely on siloed, best-of-breed systems. This is partly because only a handful of automation suppliers can meet the complex engineering, automation, and support requirements.

Recently, ABB briefed ARC Advisory Group on the company's oil & gas solutions and provided some insights on its future strategy in this very dynamic industry sector.

Integrated Operations Key to Maximizing Production

Several decades ago, ABB built a core knowledge base in the burgeoning offshore business in the North Sea. Today, the company has resources and expertise around the world with both national oil companies and the large, integrated oil companies. Based on ARC market research, ABB is currently the largest DCS supplier to the oil & gas industry worldwide, with a comprehensive portfolio of integrated operations solutions. This portfolio includes:

• Subsea wellhead control and optimization, pump control and optimization, injection control, multiphase flow, MEG recovery control, etc.
• Safety solutions including ESD, PSD, blown down (BD), HIPPS, fired heaters/BMS, and fire & gas systems
• Communication networks: satellite, network, CCTV, PABX, radio systems, surveillance systems, and entertainment
• Process automation and control systems including advanced process control (APC), enhanced control, metering, package interface, intelligent field instrumentation, and analysis
• Electrical equipment including variable speed drives (VSD), drives, transformers (subsea and topside), low voltage, medium voltage, and high voltage equipment, and power management
• Asset health monitoring/predictive maintenance leveraging advanced analytics, intelligent sensing, and real-time communications (including wireless solutions)
• Storage and loading including tank farm control, fiscal metering, reporting, etc.
• Virtualization, simulation, and distributed engineering solutions via the Cloud

According to ABB, by integrating subsystems into the System 800xA process automation system, the company can provide one common automation platform covering production management, information management, asset optimization, device management, operations and engineering integration, remote diagnostics, ERP connectivity, smart client, energy management, knowledge management, and communications connectivity.

System 800xA uses the company's Aspect Object technology to represent assets in an object-oriented fashion down to the database level. This simplifies integrating data from process controls and electrification and power, from the early stages of the project cycle through the operational phase. The company believes that integrating automation and electrification is particularly critical for offshore and subsea projects, since it can enable customers to realize faster project startups, reduce engineering time and costs, reduce equipment requirements, enhance safety, and reduce operations and maintenance costs.

Beyond the technology, implementing an effective integrated operations environment often requires a cultural and operational transformation that addresses workflows and increases collaboration to eliminate functional silos. ABB has developed its own consulting group to help customers to first become aware of the need for this transformation and then help them manage the transformational process.

ABB's Integrated Operations Approach

In one example provided, ABB worked with a customer to assess, design, and deploy systems, solutions, and processes that enabled three operators to manage a large facility that previously required 25 operators. In addition to dramatically improving operator productivity, this solution helped the customer reduce unplanned shutdowns, real labor costs, and non-productive time (NPT).

Remote Operations Increasingly Critical for Success

Today's energy companies must seek hydrocarbons in increasingly more remote and/or hostile locations. These include platforms located hundreds of miles offshore in ultra-deep waters and subsea production operations at depths of 10,000 feet or more. This increases the need for remote operations management to enable companies to monitor and control from a centralized command center. While effective remote operations management implemented using appropriate automation can go a long way to reducing business risks, it also provides other important benefits.   These include reduced travel expenses and liability; increased employee satisfaction; improved health, safety, and environment (HSE) compliance; leaner operations; greater agility; and faster implementation.

ABB has developed a remote operations command center solution that enables the company to actively participate in ongoing system monitoring and process optimization. According to ABB, it developed the solution to provide operators with secure access to an onsite automation system. It features ergonomically designed control consoles, customized dashboards, and integrated alarm management systems that help minimize operator error and stress, speed problem resolution, support collaborative workflows, and increase safety. Users will give the solution their own specific name. For example, Shell calls its command center for the company's Ormen Lange offshore field, "ARMOR," which is short for "ABB's Monitoring and Operations Room." ENI calls its command center, "ENI-ACE," which is short for "ENI ABB Collaborative Environment."

ABB solutions such as this can allow a field technician with headset video and communications capabilities to fix a problem on a rig while receiving guidance from a domain expert situated hundreds of miles away in a remote control center.

Subsea Factory of the Future

ABB has been working with Statoil to develop the "Subsea Factory of the Future" in which the entire operation is located deep on the ocean floor. This requires extensive integration among automation systems, complex sensors, safety systems, and subsea electrification and power. Anticipated benefits include more effective real-time monitoring to identify and resolve issues, increased production, and improved HSE.

Executing Complex Upstream Automation Projects

Today's energy companies seek solutions for driving down project cost and complexity, reducing operating costs, and increasing production. Faced with an exodus of experienced personnel, more owner-operators are seeking out partners that possess the domain expertise, technical experience, and resources needed to support ever more complex projects requiring more advanced automation and technology solutions and cultural transformations.

ABB provides engineering and technical support through 24 local engineering centers located in key hotspots around the world. ABB's Service Environment represents a complete lifecycle service and support concept for the oil & gas industry. The company's service offerings are scalable and can be adapted to individual customer and site needs.

As ARC learned, ABB has developed some unique solutions by partnering with users. These include developing power and electrification for offshore or subsea operations, utilizing robotics to provide continuous drilling systems, and developing automated pig handling systems. ABB also has extensive experience assisting companies with many critical level 3 operations management applications.

ABB continues to develop one of the broadest portfolios of products and system solutions designed to serve the needs of upstream, midstream, and downstream oil & gas customers. According to ABB, it was the first company to deliver a power-from-shore solution for an offshore rig. It is working with Statoil to develop electrification solutions for subsea oil & gas production with components that can operate at depths of up to 3,000 meters. Among other accomplishments, ABB has helped automate about 50,000 unconventional gas wells in North America and delivered automation and safety systems to the world's largest natural gas offshore platform in the North Sea.

Conclusion

While automation and electrical solutions (which include FEED, engineering, and commissioning) only represent 6 to 9 percent of total overall project costs for a typical upstream project, ABB claims that it can help reduce the costs related to power and automation by 15 to 20 percent and reduce OpEx costs by 10 to 20 percent by leveraging its unique portfolio of products, system solutions, and services.

ARC research indicates that ABB is major player across all the product and solution categories in which it competes in oil & gas, particularly in the upstream segment. In areas such as integrating control and electrification (especially offshore and subsea), ABB has been a leader in developing innovative solutions that provide measurable results. ABB possesses one of the broadest product and system portfolios designed to meet the unique needs of oil & gas users, and supports that portfolio with strong engineering and technical support.

The company appears to be well positioned to increase its future market share in the oil & gas segment as it continues to invest in its product and systems solution development, engineering and technical support facilities, and continues to partner with its customers to meet their increasingly challenging requirements.

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Keywords: ABB, Integrated Operations, Control and Electrification, Asset Health Monitoring, Remote Operations Management.