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Castrol Relies on CC-Link for Tank Monitoring

ControlGlobal.com
01/11/2010

Environmental protection has become a critical topic throughout the world, and the BP-Castrol facility in Rio de Janerio, Brazil is no exception. This facility is very concerned about the environment and in preventing all environmental hazards.

This facility utilizes many tanks containing petroleum and numerous types of petroleum by-products. These tanks are used to store the petroleum products for use to create different combinations of Castrol lubricants. The tanks range in size from 6,000 liters to more than 600,000 liters. BP-Castrol engineers wanted to upgrade the overflow monitoring system in their facility to provide a greater degree of reliability to the system. Prior to the installation of the CC-Link application, the overflow monitoring was done manually by BP-Castrol Engineers on a periodic basis. This manual overflow monitoring consisted of the engineers physically inspecting each tank, which included climbing ladders to Castrol relies on CC-Link for Tank Monitoring visually examine the status of 98 tanks located throughout the facility both indoors and outdoors. This inspection was required every working day regardless of the weather. One particular outside tank required the inspector to climb a 13 meter tall ladder. This was an added safety hazard especially in inclement weather. This manual inspection system was conducted according to a periodic schedule. But because it was not possible to manually monitor all tank levels on a continuous basis, the facility was still susceptible to product overflows and other supply issues throughout the 50-year life of the facility.

CETEM and Elsitec17, system integrators and suppliers located in Rio de Janerio, worked with BP-Castrol and recommended a CC-Link solution to automate the tank monitoring process. This initial solution included a single Mitsubishi FX controller and Input/Output modules connected via a CC-Link network to automatically monitor one set of tanks.

This was an initial test of the viability of the automatic overflow monitoring concept. This concept consisted of monitoring the tanks for any overflow, and upon detecting a potential overflow condition information using these level sensors. This expansion also added the control of the pumps and valves to the CC-Link network. The valve control is used to remotely open and close the valves.