Project Overview
GMG Corporation was contracted to engineer, build, program, and deploy a six (6) bay, crude oil unloading/monitoring system at a crude oil gathering facility.
Design
The unloading bay monitoring system is designed to monitor product volume, temperature, basic sediment, and water cut percentage continuously during the unloading of a crude gathering tanker truck. Upon arriving at the terminal, the truck driver enters the security station and logs into the system via one of three (3) alphanumeric data entry keypads. Load data such as the tank & farm no, starting and ending tank gauges, field temperature, etc. are also keyed in by the driver. Data entered via the keypads is validated in real-time via an SQL Server 2005 RDBMS. After clearance is received, the driver can connect to the designated bay and commence unloading.
During the unloading process, the PLC logs the Water Cut, Temperature, Totalized Volume, and Timestamp per an operator-configured sample volume set point. Once the unloading process is completed, both the data entered into the keypads, as well as the unloading bay instrumentation data is stored into the SQL Server RDBMS and a load receipt is generated for the driver.
On a configurable time period, the load data stored in the local SQL Server RDBMS is transferred to a main SQL Server located in the owner's central office.
The Solution
This project showcases OPTO 22 LCM4 controller technology. OPTO 22 LCM4 technology was selected for this project for several reasons: Enhanced Serial communications capabilities, hardware cost, and scalability through distributed Ethernet connectivity.
Technologies In Use
OPTO 22 LCM4 Controller
High Speed Ethernet Communications
SQL Server 2005 RDBMS
Remote Administration/monitoring via VPN
WAN (Wide Area Connection) Network to Main Refinery Office
Rosemount Instrumentation
FMC Invalco Instrumentation
Halliburton Instrumentation
Benefits
The technology employed in this metering solution is proven to be more accurate than manual grab sampling. The automated nature of the crude unloading system allows the owner to redeploy key personnel to other more profitable tasks.
