On a recent project, Terra Ferma, a Colorado-based systems integrator specialising in portable communications systems for harsh and remote environments, was challenged to design a system for video surveillance and data acquisition at remote wellheads scattered throughout the Rocky Mountains.
Twenty wellhead applications link directly to a remote central server and control centre, allowing for remote operations control, surveillance, and systems diagnostics from miles (or even continents) away. Field technicians and site managers are notified of critical wellhead events by SMS or e-mail, and may access remote video feeds and sensor readings from the field using any web enabled smartphone, laptop or tablet. The legacy scada is fully integrated with the customer’s industry standard flowmeters, sensors and IP cameras over both wireless and serial links, allowing for detailed monitoring of site production. Detailed real-time overviews of injection, pipeline, or water and fracking fluid processes are all available. At the control centre, a central cellular modem receives feeds from a network of UL Class 1, Division 2 IP cameras, automatically storing event driven images and video feed to the network server.
Each wellhead was equipped with various sensors and meters that needed to be monitored and controlled from a central HMI, often miles away from the assets in the field. Redundant solar and wind generators were installed at each wellhead to support the electrical needs of the pump-stations, temperature meters, cameras and cellular modules.
In addition to asset management and remote control capabilities, data logging for remote surveillance and alarm notifications was a key demand from the customer. Terra Ferma’s solution needed to be power efficient, reliable, and capable of supporting high-bandwidth data feeds.
Requiring full integration of scada with remote monitoring capabilities, Terra Ferma turned to Moxa to meet its networking demands. The decision was an easy one:
Moxa’s vertically integrated oil and gas products provide a variety of end-to-end solutions that all feature strong certifications for harsh environments, low power consumption, and also the UL Class 1, Division 2 IP video camera.
Terra Ferma and Moxa, along with MSI Tec, are extending enterprise IT communications from the corporate offices out to the most remote and harsh industrial environments the oil and gas industries have to face. From in-the-field sensors at the very edge of the network all the way up to remote data acquisition and scada integration, Terra Ferma and Moxa are enabling the digital oil field across the globe, pushing industrialised Ethernet, wireless communications, embedded computing and industrialised IP video, out to the harshest extremes the industry has to offer.
“Because of the mission-critical nature of our systems, we rely on best-of-breed technology. For that reason, we have complete confidence in Moxa components to protect our customers and our reputation,” said Dennis Roark, president of Terra Ferma.
Business benefits
Twenty wellheads kitted out with a full array of automated data logging, monitoring and control devices link to a miles-distant central server and control room, where remote operations surveillance, system diagnostics and control routines are collected and acted upon. Live, event-triggered video feeds and complete reports on all available sensor data are accessible over wired or wireless Ethernet, and may be easily accessed using smartphones, tablets or laptops.
PACs serve as strongly intelligent RTUs, logging real-time pressure, flow-rate and temperature data, and storing it for analysis of historical trends. These PACs are capable of pushing emergency alerts to system operators over SMS or email whenever production anomalies occur. At the control centre, a central cellular modem monitors the network of rugged UL Class 1, Division 2 IP cameras, automatically storing images and video feed to the network server and pushing video feeds onto the control centre’s main HMI whenever certain event triggers are logged. Terra Ferma and Moxa were able to integrate this vertically integrated remote monitoring and control system with the legacy scada system already installed on the site, giving the customer significant savings on deployment costs, both in terms of infrastructure outlay and system downtime.
For more information contact RJ Connect, +27 (0)11 781 0777, info@rjconnect.co.za, www.rjconnect.co.za
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