Solve Critical Pipeline Problems with Edge Control Solutions

 A spectrum of challenges faces the pipeline industry today. Infrastructure is degrading, and money is regularly lost to excessive maintenance, downtime, leaks and surges, while the need for new equipment to satisfy environmental and operations requirements drives the demand for increasing automation.

But what if pipeline operators could reduce annual maintenance by 8%, cut false alarms and unplanned downtime by 15%, achieve 20% improvement of anti-surge controls, save a minimum of $2M annually on penalties and $4M in prevention of pipeline switch out?

All that’s possible as was explained in a recent Emerson Exchange Virtual Series webinar presented by Denka Wangdi and Thomas Sessum, “Enhance Pipeline Operations and Monitoring with PLCs and Industrial Edge Control.”

 Denka and Thomas explain that the pipeline industry is in need of fundamental solutions that can be achieved with PLCs and edge control – historical trending that can better analyze leaks and identify false alarms, predictive analytics that can accurately analyze and reduce source emissions, high availability that keeps operations running, and enhanced insights that can prevent surges.

Leak detection is a critical challenge to pipeline operations since more than 80% of pipelines are underground. Taking not only measurements, but also analyzing the measurements at the edge allows for immediate notification of potential leaks and the ability to dispatch drones for fast evaluation of the situation, as well as for rapidly determining false alarms and the criticality of the leak without having to send personnel into risky situations.

 Good news for an industry encumbered by lack of availability of talent, the Emerson PACSystemsTM edge control solution is an end-to-end system, designed to work together for fast startup. Pipeline operations can start with a focused solution for a single pump station and scale up to a total system. End-to-end technology means from the edge to the enterprise and back again, encompassing reliable deterministic process control, analytic capabilities at the edge, data visualization, communication with SCADA and further communication with the enterprise systems, using both operations technology and information technology in one system.

  

 PACSystems PLC-based edge solutions plus software have the ability to overcome many profit-stealing challenges in a single decision.

Learn more about Emerson’s industrial automation and edge technologies for the oil & gas industry here.