Plant Management
Fig. 1. Mobile access to process data is driving efficiencies at the plant.
4 Many different industries in the process sector are benefiting from the latest wireless technologies, particularly in terms of reduced system costs, fast commissioning and ease of maintenance. Eugene McCarthy reports..
Wireless technologies promote access to process data
W
hen Shell Eastern Petroleum recently completed a new ethylene cracker complex in Singapore, it became the first time in the oil and gas industry
that wireless technology has been deployed to get mobile access to the process control system. When planning the project, Shell wanted to get
mobile access to all process data via WLAN at defined places in the refinery to drive efficiencies (Fig. 1). Peter Beerepoot, who was responsible for instrumentation process control of the entire project for Shell Eastern Petroleum, says: “We were given the opportunity to develop a complete infrastructure. Our initial thoughts during the front end engineering and design (FEED) phase, was that wireless would give us a number of key benefits. So we considered substitution of local panels, which we believed would bring us advantages in terms of cost reduction and increased efficiency.” “Throughout our selection process, a few potential
partners were willing to listen, but only one, Belden, was capable of delivering the right solution by successfully listening to what the customer has to say and to act accordingly,” said Tsjoi Tsim, consultant wireless technologies, who acted on behalf of Shell Global Solutions International (SGSI). Yokogawa was appointed as the main automation
contractor for the project. Belden took on the project management, the design and building of a complete WLAN solution, consisting of a wireless distribution system incorporating 90 Hirschmann access points (BAT54-F X2) for ECC and multiple antennas, linked across a redundant, fibre ring backbone. A very important feature in this project was that
all relevant parts of the solution had to be suitable for the challenging environmental conditions and that they had to be properly certified accordingly to comply to ATEX/IEC60079. To have such certification is mandatory for safety and governance reasons. Therefore this location has to be regarded as being a hazardous area.
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