Emerson Exchange 365

The recent shale gas boom in North America has driven substantial capital investment in the chemical industry. With plenty of cheap natural gas now available to make methanol—an essential building block in many hydrocarbon products—companies are breaking ground on a string of new greenfield projects to take advantage of the windfall in feedstock.

This week at the 2014 Emerson Global Users Exchange, Robert Armstrong of engineering and procurement contractor WorleyParsons and Daniel Carlson of Emerson discussed how wireless automation technology is playing an integral role in the design and engineering of a new $700 million methanol unit.

Time was short on the project from the outset, as the customer wanted to build the methanol plant quickly to make the most of the favorable market conditions. “With a compressed schedule, we had to find solutions that would save us time during design, installation, commissioning, and start-up,” Armstrong said. “This necessary efficiency also has the added benefit of cutting costs for all involved.”

To meet the scheduled start-up deadline in 2015, WorleyParsons and Emerson did two important things. First, they knew they had to talk with the customer about the project requirements as early in the front-end engineering and design (FEED) process as possible. This would allow them to budget time for late design change orders or other unforeseen events, as well as engage in extensive technology reviews with the customer, which was the second part of their approach.

“The reviews were intended to ensure that for a given process we were all on the same page about what technologies are available, what their capabilities are, and what the customer needs,” Armstrong continued. “This is how we came to decide that the plant’s automation system would be based on Emerson’s DeltaV distributed control system with Mobile Worker capability and WirelessHART instrumentation.”

“The Mobile Worker capability with a Cisco Wi-Fi cloud will help eliminate communications problems between commissioning teams in the field and the control room. Seeing the instrument and the control screen in the field at the same time improves commissioning efficiency and reduces frustration and mistakes. At the same time, wireless instrumentation provides reliable data from the field without having to run wires, and the savings from that have allowed us to automate applications like API seal flush plans that would have traditionally been done with gauges. Also, the reformer teams can move surface mount temperature sensors at will until they find the optimal monitoring spots.”

“We followed a standardized flow-chart and formula for selecting instrumentation at each I/O point that involved the stakeholders reviewing all the relevant factors step-by-step,” Armstrong explained. “We specified 300 transmitters across several WirelessHART networks in the design, carefully going over the geography and capacity requirements for each area of the units that we needed to cover, along with the usual concerns for power, space, communications, and safety.”

An example of the other benefits of remote monitoring is the safety showers throughout the plant. Operators can now detect from just about anywhere that a shower has been activated. Crews can respond immediately to the scene of an emergency thanks to simple ready-made transmitter kits that are easily installed and work in remote areas. “Safety showers can be wired, but automating was a design change that was faster and easier to do with wireless. “

“By adopting wireless solutions, we estimate being able to cut the time needed for commissioning in half, from 100 days to just 50,” Armstrong concluded. “We saved 7 to 10 man-hours and an estimated $2,500 per wireless I/O point, drastically streamlining design and installation with increased ability to manage change. Not only is the project on schedule, but the customer is also getting a better plant for its money.”