Changing market conditions require more flexibility and efficiency in the offshore production of natural gas and oil.
Wintershall, a global producer of oil and gas for more than 75 years, looked for a way to stay ahead of these dynamic market demands and to overcome the many challenges associated with offshore oil and gas production.
Central control room
As part of an innovative technology project and with the help of Honeywell, Wintershall built a central control room (CCR) to help co-ordinate control of multiple offshore platforms in the North Sea, and improve operations and efficiency.
With the new CCR Wintershall has centralised operations at 18 of its 26 offshore platforms.
All operating and production procedures are fully automated and synchronised, creating increased flexibility and competitive advantage.
At the heart of Wintershall's CCR is Honeywell's Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS) that enables operators to monitor and control production at various platforms.
Effective decision making
Project benefits recognised by Wintershall include:
- Faster, more effective decision making by operations staff.
- Greater production flexibility.
- Significant increase in efficiency through reduced helicopter flights, ship movements and supply of material to platforms.
- Increased uptime and higher levels of productivity and throughput
- Improved safety through full redundancy and built-in failover support.
Honeywell's central control room improves operations at Wintershall's multiple offshore platforms.
Wintershall is Germany's largest producer of crude oil and natural gas with an annual production rate equivalent to more than 112million barrels of oil.
Focused on selected core regions where the company possesses a wealth of regional and technology expertise, the company employs more than 1800 people from more than 30 countries with locations in Europe, North Africa, South America, Russia and the Caspian area. Wintershall continues to experience success and growth as a wholly owned subsidiary of BASF SE.
Wintershall has always been on the cutting edge of technology and able to overcome the challenges associated with offshore oil and gas production.
For more than 30 years, the company has had multiple offshore platforms running in the North Sea and has been successfully extracting offshore oil and gas.
In order to stay ahead of ever-changing market demands, Wintershall considered its technology options and how best to improve operations at multiple facilities.
"We want to be seen as innovators when it comes to technology and use the latest in communications and control systems to help save time and money on operational logistics but keeping safety priority number one," said Jan Hartman, Production Superintendent, Wintershall.
Solution
After considering its options, Wintershall selected Honeywell, one of its key partners, to help build a CCR in Den Helder, the Netherlands to co-ordinate the operation of multiple offshore platforms. The CCR is one step in Wintershall's ongoing quest to stay ahead of its competition.
"We have been able to increase our efficiency with faster response times and improved flexibility in our business," continued Hartman. "Now we are able to diagnose the problem in a centralised control room, communicate with the people offshore and make informed decisions in a timely manner. With the help of systems from Honeywell we now have sufficient data to make the right decisions."
At the heart of Wintershall's CCR is Honeywell's Experion PKS. With Experion, operators can quickly monitor and easily control the production at various platforms.
Experion's advanced human machine interface allows operators to get a fast picture of the situation to avoid any process upsets before they occur.
Remotely controlling platforms
Powered by a Distributed System Architecture (DSA), Experion enables operators to gain confidence in remotely controlling platforms in a more efficient manner.
DSA allows multiple Experion systems to operate as one within a single unit, site or enterprise. Integrated with Experion are Fail Safe Controllers and Safety Manager, Honeywell's advanced safety systems, as well as fire and gas detection systems. The result is a CCR that provides more operating flexibility with greater safety.
"We now have a transparent process where operators can access information they need to do their jobs better and safer," said Age Jonker, CCR Supervisor, Wintershall. "Previously we had to visit the installations and the physical equipment to truly see what was going on. Now we have a helicopter overview from a centralized point on all platforms with one system and direct communication links to our people."
To help increase the speed and accuracy of information sharing, Wintershall installed video conferencing technology to connect employees on the platform, in the control room and on the management team.
Increase safety
Wintershall's CCR has proven to be a success. The Honeywell control and safety solution has been running with no interruption to Wintershall's business and no loss of productivity.
With the entire production process controlled from a centralised point, only a few employees are required on the platforms, a significant increase in safety and efficiency.
Concluded Hartman, "One of the best goals we've achieved after a year of production is that our efficiency went up also due to less helicopter flights, boat trips and less people on board the platforms - all of which increased the flexibility and increased our safety."
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