Posts tagged ‘monitoring’
Proficy Pulse Monitors Vital Signs of Operations
GE Intelligent Platforms announced its new visualization software solution, Proficy® Pulse, which empowers operators, engineers and analysts to view, analyze and correlate real-time operational situations and historical intelligence. The new software delivers the power to contextualize data within a single application and the ability to share with others via the Web.
Combined with GE’s Proficy Historian, Proficy Pulse enables customers to consolidate disparate data into a single viewpoint, driving continuous improvement activities, increasing quality through monitoring, facilitating faster troubleshooting, and driving accountability. Proficy Pulse consolidates operational and process data, providing instant insight into operational health. Designed to cater to operational personnel, Proficy Pulse brings the performance of a real-time HMI and delivers abilities to transform raw data into intelligence.
“Operational efficiency starts with an informed and efficient operator,” said Claire Cerrato, General Manager Automation Software for GE Intelligent Platforms. “The role of today’s operator is changing as he/she takes on more responsibilities to keep plants running. This requires operators to have access to as much operational information as they can get in the environment that they are most used to. Therefore, companies are looking for that ‘ergonomic’ HMI that presents operational data beyond the traditional HMI to analyze large volumes of data from many sources, making objective decisions based on complex, real-time information.”
Features of Proficy Pulse include:
- Real-time HMI is a true OPC DA and OPC Alarms & Events client;
- On-the-fly historian analysis;
- Open Architecture that supports standard interfaces like OPC, ADO, OLEDB and ODBC;
- Flexible graphics editor for visualization and analysis;
- Background scheduler for triggering reports, initiating workflows and generating analytical samples; and
- Intelligent and collaborative user environment for increased efficiency and ease of operation.
“With the loss of experienced workers, growing volatility in raw materials, energy, and finished goods markets, and the increasingly more demanding and complex manufacturing environment, the need for improved operator situational awareness is on the rise,” according to Tom Fiske, Senior Analyst at ARC Advisory Group. “Currently, there is a dearth of tools available specifically aimed at bringing multiple data sources together that provide operational context, intelligence, and situational awareness for operators so they can profitably respond to changing market conditions. ARC sees a growing need for more types of tools like Proficy Pulse.”
Proficy Pulse is a scalable single application that can be deployed on embedded devices like panels and tablets or desktop computers or thin clients like a Terminal Services client for barcodes or a Web client through a browser. In addition, Proficy Pulse comes with a totally integrated Change Management support tool that allows for application deployment, application versioning, disaster recovery and collaborative application development change control.
Technip, Schlumberger Announce FlexPipe Monitoring Agreement
Technip and Schlumberger have signed a global cooperation agreement to jointly develop subsea integrity and surveillance solutions for flexible pipes used in deepwater offshore oil and gas production. The new agreement extends the collaboration between the companies that began in 1998.
The agreement is initially focused on surveillance systems activities for new and challenging flexible pipe applications such as those required in the deepwater pre-salt environment in Brazil. Several key Schlumberger technologies used in subsurface applications have been identified for integration into Technip’s new Ultra Deepwater flexible pipe designs.
Alain Marion, Sr. VP Subsea Assets and Technologies, Technip, commented: “By combining Technip’s technical and manufacturing knowledge of flexible pipe with Schlumberger surveillance technology, a new generation of intelligent flexible pipe will be created. The ‘measurement-enabled’ flexible pipe will provide significant value to the industry in safety, reliability and performance. This new combination enhances Technip’s already extensive portfolio of flexible pipe products, which represent key components for the development of ultra-deepwater fields.”
One of the initial integrity solutions that the partners expect to develop and qualify is focused on the use of optical fiber to monitor a variety of parameters characterizing pipe behavior. Andy Hendricks, VP Subsea at Schlumberger, explained: “The extremely robust nature of fiber-optic sensors in deepwater environments, combined with the possibility of using a single interrogation unit for a whole production system, makes this solution both technically and commercially superior.”
The new technology combination extends Schlumberger subsea products and services, which already include other surveillance technologies, production flow assurance engineering, and light-vessel well intervention project.
As part of the collaboration, retrofit solutions will also be pursued to address the large number of flexible pipes in operation utilizing proven technologies and methodologies applied subsurface, but now tailored to the flexible pipe domain.
Mobile Spy Monitors GPS Locations, SMS Messages and Calls
Arizona-based Retina-X Studios LLC announced the availability of Mobile Spy for smartphones running the Android operating system. Using this technology, users can silently monitor GPS locations, incoming and outgoing text messages (SMS) and call information of children or employees — even if activity logs are erased. Mobile Spy had already been available for the BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Symbian OS smartphones. The new version for the Android platform is now on the market.
Baker Hughes Launches Artificial Lift Monitoring Service
Baker Hughes has launched Centrilift Vision™, a real-time, artificial lift monitoring and optimization service. Centrilift Vision collects data from artificial lift operations and then provides clients the critical information necessary to optimize production and minimize field down time.
Centrilift Vision includes several differentiating features, including fuzzy logic alarming, daily exception reporting and advanced key performance indicator (KPI) tracking. All of these features allow operators to highlight and diagnose artificial lift issues and opportunities in real time, which ensures optimal production levels from artificially lifted wells and maximizes the life of the artificial lift system. Vision is easy to use and access while conforming to stringent data security standards, and combined with Baker Hughes’ downhole sensors, it provides a complete system to unlock the full potential of artificial lift completions.
“Vision is a breakthrough in artificial lift monitoring and optimization because we have closed the gap between the time a production-impacting event occurs and when it is recognized, diagnosed and repaired in the field,” said John Kenner, President of the Baker Hughes Centrilift product line. “This capability can dramatically reduce non-productive time.”
First Reservoir Monitoring Using Fiber Optic Acoustic Sensor
UK-based Fotech Solutions has installed the world’s first downhole distributed acoustic optical fiber system using the company’s unique Helios monitoring solution in a coalbed methane well in Scotland for Composite Energy Ltd of Stirling, UK. The easily-installed Helios system can be deployed in a range of applications in the global oil and gas industry including reservoir surveillance, production monitoring, integrity assurance, flowline movement, flow assurance and leak detection.
The system was installed in August 2009 and has already provided valuable data including:
- Downhole pump condition monitoring,
- Location of water level,
- Flow profiles across the production intervals,
- Vibrations at the wellhead, and
- Gas flow.
Such a set-up can also be used for monitoring sand production, casing/tubing integrity and cross flow.
The system comprises two elements: 1) a simple, low-cost, telecoms grade optical fiber cable; and 2) the Helios interrogator, which is the heart of the system. Helios effectively provides acoustic or vibration information along the entire length of the installed optical fiber to provide multi-event information, event characterization and highly accurate event location. An acoustic signal is recorded for each meter along the fiber, enabling the system to detect and position an event to an accuracy of one meter and distinguish separate events more than two meters apart. It also has remote control capability. The fiber can be laid near a pipeline or installed in a borehole.
Don Sharples, technical manager, Composite Energy, said: “Initial results from the Fotech fiber are very encouraging. The Fotech Distributed Acoustic technology collects data that is not available from other downhole sensors and will give Composite the ability to determine which coals are producing in any given well.”
Alan Piesse co-founder and Exec. VP of Fotech Services, said: “Our vision for Helios was to provide sound at the speed of light, and its successful deployment has really changed the game in the global monitoring sector. We see a strong future for the system in monitoring gas flow in coalbed methane wells and other applications. For the first time flow can be seen and
heard entering and moving in the well and quantified in real time. We hope to continue monitoring Composite Energy’s CBM wells and look forward to a close working relationship with them.”
PetroComputing 