Sponsored by Siemens Industry, Inc. By Bill Lydon, Editor Siemens hosted a thought leadership event on February 22, 2013 in Houston, TX. More than 300 oil and gas industry executives, technology leaders, and industry experts attended featured presentations, a trade fair and a networking event at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. In addition, attendees viewed a 3D presentation highlighting the new Siemens TIA Portal and controllers. The new Siemens mobile demonstration semitrailer was parked outside for attendees to tour showcases of automation products.
Keynote speakers included Dr. Richard Murray, Bob Lanier Professor of Public Policy, Department of Political Science at University of Houston and a presentation on "Safety and the Future of Automation in Drilling" by Jim Rogers, Automation Advisor of Apache Corp. These keynotes were followed by a panel discussion. Dr. Helmuth Ludwig, CEO, Siemens Industry Sector Dr.
Helmuth Ludwig, CEO, Siemens Industry Sector, North America, opened the event by observing the impacts of the United States energy revolution. The revolution is resulting in lower energy costs and is a big contributor to positioning the country to be more competitive. As CEO of the Industry Sector in North America, Helmuth Ludwig is responsible for all business activity of the Siemens Industry Sector business in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Central America. He described his idea of Siemens success being built on “P3” (P Cubed). The first P is strong knowledgeable Partners.
The second is great Products. And the third are good People. He also emphasized Siemens’ attention on cyber security and safety, indicating they are a high priority with all Siemens management. This attention is reflected in investment and new product designs.
Richard W. Murray, PhD, University of Houston Richard W. Murray provided a candid view of the political situation regarding the oil and gas industry. Professor Murray has consulted in more than 200 political campaigns, conducts polls, and is a political commentator for the local ABC affiliate, KTRK-TV.
In addition, his analyses and commentary are carried by television and radio, as well as print media such as The New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times, and the Houston Chronicle.
Murray discussed how the most recent election results present challenges for the oil & gas industry. He did note there may be some change in politics in states where new technology has enabled the extraction of oil and gas that is creating wealth and good jobs. The lower energy prices are also good for the economy. Murray pointed out that second term presidents typically focus on their legacy. Currently, the big issue is to improve the economy and create jobs.
Murray observed that this may help to create more balance in the political landscape. In this regard, the oil and gas industry can be a big part of helping to rebuild the economy and is creating jobs.
Siemens Trade Fair Houston Museum of Natural Science
Jim Rogers, Automation Advisor, Apache Corporation Jim Rogers provided a unique perspective on the oil & gas industry based on his experience in chemical plants, electrical utility power, and general process industries as an automation solution architect. Rogers is currently working in the World Wide Drilling group applying automation technologies to drilling operations. Rogers is an ISA Certified Automation Professional (CAP) with over 26 years of automation experience. Prior to joining Apache, Rogers worked at Shell International Exploration & Production Co. At Shell, Rogers designed and implemented automation, control, and information systems for both onshore and offshore assets.
Rogers discussed how drilling rigs continue to be manually operated. Independently-operated equipment on the rig included top drive, draw-works, mud pumps, and other skid based units. Each piece of equipment has its own control system, HMI, control panel and person to operate it. A typical drilling rig has 10-20 people operating their group of equipment all mostly in isolation. “This is a disintegrated equipment, people, and workflow process,” said Rogers.
He emphasized this creates coordination problems and inefficiencies. Rogers made a distinction between mechanization and automation. Mechanization, for example, is a pipe handler on a rig where the operator pushes a button and the pipe is moved to the drill floor. There is a level of control and automation missing a level above that has to do with decision-making to determine, as Rogers says, “What is done and when it is done.” Mechanization is more how it’s carried out.
Decisions on a drill rig now are made by people running all the separate systems on the drilling rig. The automation of the process requires capturing knowledge from experienced people and putting it in software algorithms of a computer control system. Rogers related this vision to how process plants, chemical plants, refineries, and other process industries operate. Rogers made the point that the business drivers for making this transition are similar to what’s happened in other industries particularly to improve efficiency, reliability, and safety. Rogers discussed better process design, equipment design, and engineering practices to design the hazards out of the process.
In 2010, the Society of Petroleum Engineers formed the Drilling Systems Automation Technical Section group with the goal of re-engineering the process to improve the industry and increase safety. http://connect.spe.org/dsats/home/ Rogers made the case to improve drilling by using an Industrial PC running a software PLC and Windows applications for modeling and analytic software. Having these applications running together on an industrial PC (IPC) tightly couples control and real-time modeling together to achieve greater efficiency.
He noted that accomplishing this also requires more instrumentation and provided examples. Rogers noted that the automation of oil drilling rigs can take advantage of the technology and standards used in other automation applications. A prime example is the adoption of OPC UA to standardize the communications of downhole drilling information using the Well Information Transfer Standard (WITSML) data model.
Panel Discussion
The event also included a panel discussion moderated by Scott Sorenson, Oil & Gas Automation Consultant at Siemens Industry, that that included Jim Rogers along with Trent Martin - Engineering Manager Transocea, Len Crawford III - President Crawford Technical Services, and Wolfgang Rubrecht - Vice President Industrial Automation Systems Business at Siemens Industry. Topics included cyber security, condition-based monitoring, predictive maintenance, data integrity, fracking issues, and big data.
