Invensys offers a wide range of solutions for the oil and gas industry that not only provide great value, but also solve complex issues, according to the companys global industry solutions VP Donald Clark
Clark spoke to Oil Review about the business strategies his division provides to the upstream and downstream sector in the region. His remit covers five heavy processing industries that include upstream oil and gas, chemicals, mining and power (fossil and nuclear).
"Our basic charter is to take the entire portfolio of Invensys Operations Management, spend time with our customers and provide solutions composed of our products, to any business problem our customers might have," he said.
Clark added: "All our guys are experienced experts in their field who all have a great understanding of our technology and solution. Everything we deal with is about value, value, value. How we can reduce your rates and improve your marketability."
Clark explained that Invensys knits together solutions across its portfolio to deliver value. He cited the example of the company's work on brown fields in the region. The mature market is a one of the company's focus and the brown fields will see Invensys taking existing assets and revitalising them.
"A great example is our work on a 20 plus-year-old platform off Abu Dhabi. We are helping modernise these platforms by improving their safety applications and productivity. So we are upgrading the technology information of these platforms. With upgraded information services, we can bring in optimised scheduling and effectively revitalise these platforms," he added.
"We see this as a growing market in the region, with fields and platforms from Saudi Arabia to the UAE starting to enter that 30-year maturing period," said Clark.
In the downstream sector, Invensys has provided three unique systems for refinery operations that are new to the market.
One solution which has proved very popular is the energy management system. In a refinery you need a good balance of energy sinks and sources and to make sure it does not get out of sync which can lead to unscheduled shut downs.
"That is why we have solutions that look at the consuming and producing aspects in refinery and maintain the balance. The energy management solution comprises every piece of our portfolio, from sensors, information interface to data logging," he explained.
"The other solution we are very excited about is refining optimisation. We are taking software programmes that essentially model the kinetic process going on in a crude unit in a cracker, and we are looking at the market price of the finished product. We run these programmes on a periodic basis and give guidance on how you should optimally, in terms of profitability, set the parameters for the refinery. It is called Romeo."
The third solution that is on the verge of introduction is based on the Triconex system. It is a safety shutdown system and according to Clark, is a market leader. It is triply redundant which is unique.
Clark provided the example of Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura which uses this system. It can provide analyses of each unit in a refinery and give a quantitative measurement of how safe they are operating. With this, you can push certain units to operate at a high conversion rate because you know you are still safe. So you arrive at a real time assessment of the degree of safeness.
Clark concluded by talking about Invensys' Net Oil and Wet Gas system that measures the multiple phases and components, liquids and vapors like water, oil and gas, in the same stream. This system has being used successfully in Algeria by the state oil company, Sonatrach.
Due to the nature of the natural gas liquids in Algeria's wells, there is a need for a separator on top of most wells in the country. With the company's Wet Gas application, there is no need to separate the gas and liquid on site as it can be first pumped to a central place and then separated.
