âThe goal is low onâsite manning. There are no specialists onâsite.â ABBâs Bjarte Onar Birkeland explained how remote services are enabling Shell to realize, among other goals, 70% conditionâbased maintenance in gas production facilities.
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Modern oil, gas and petrochemical operations rely on advanced technological solutions to optimize production, reduce operating costs, increase safety and extend the overall field lifecycle, said Birkeland. Shell undertook a five-year service agreement with ABB for its Ormen Lange plant, as well as the existing Draugen offshore platform. âThis contract is all about providing value to the strategy of operations,â he explained. âThe Shell contract is not a full-service contract. Itâs a bundled services contract. To get this to work in a remote environment, you need processes that are monitored and quality-assured. The remote work is mostly operations management.â
While remote access was added to the existing Draugen platform, the system design phase is the optimal point for including remote access. âYou can increase the overall benefit by remote work,â explained Birkeland. âYou can put system recovery plans in place. Detecting the first failure before the second occurs is very important.â
Ormen Lange is using ABBâs System 800xA, and Draugen added an 800xA on top of its existing system. ABB is single point of contact for all automation-related issues and for incidents, changes, field alerts and configuration management.
ABB performs and assists in the system operations to match Shell information security policy. Remote system monitoring is integrated with the site inventory so historical data can be considered, as well. Secure client server management, loop tuning and process optimization and preventive maintenance are all part of ABBâs remote capabilities and responsibilities. âAnd weâre responsible for system evolution planning in line with the plantâs overall shutdown windows,â explained Birkeland.
The Service Desk, which is both manned and automated, is the heart of where all information is collected. âIt records the case type and dispatches it to the correct team within the defined time,â said Birkeland. âThe team leader assigns it to a specialist, which could be any one of a variety of ABB resources all over the world. âWe have 60 product groups and 400 engineers available to this group,â he said. âWeâve also added third parties. The customer and third parties have access to the same tools we do.â
Important aspects of Service Desk functionality include configuration, field alert and overall change managementâall facilitated remotely. âConfiguration items can relate to products, such as software, hardware or documents, or to sitesâitems such as services or systems. âThe field alert service facilitates preventive maintenance. System owners are informed on software and hardware actually used at the site, and it eliminates potential incidents by learning from other sites,â he said. âIt makes in-house, system-specific expertise unnecessary.â