2004-05-07 - ABB has secured further contracts for the Caspian Sea oil and gas projects, bringing to over £50 million the total value of business awarded to the power and automation technology group since 2001
ABB is supplying equipment for two parts of the project: an oil project, for which ABB is supplying equipment for the offshore platforms, an onshore terminal and the pipeline construction itself; and a gas project with equipment supplied for offshore platforms, an onshore terminal and a pipeline.
“ABB won the project due to its competitive price, proven technology but most importantly its ability to re-use designs, solutions and operations across all projects that have already been proven and tested,” explains Philip Clark, ABB’s Director – Caspian Region Projects.
Oil project
The most advanced project is the 1,755 km oil pipeline, which the governments of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey agreed to build in 1999 at a cost of US$ 2.9 billion. The pipeline flows from Azerbaijan via Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
Terminal and platforms
ABB is supplying, installing and commissioning an integrated control and safety system (ICSS) comprising a process control system and an integrated safety system. The integrated safety system consists of several self-contained systems comprising a fire and gas sub-system covering process and non-process areas and separate emergency shutdown sub-systems for the process area.
This will provide process control, emergency shutdown and fire and gas protection on the Central Azeri, compression and water-injection platform, the East Azeri and West Azeri oil platforms as well as at the Sangachal oil terminal. In addition, a range of ABB products are being used throughout the terminal and platforms including Operate IT operating stations, AC 450 controllers, SG400 Safeguard controllers, along with S800 remote I/O and the use of S900 I/O mounted in ‘Exe’ rated cabinets for zone 1 mounting. ABB is also supplying Introl control valves for all the platforms.
Variable speed drives are being delivered by ABB in Norway for pump control.
The first ABB project to be completed will be Central Azerbijan platform. West and East platforms are replicas of each other and similar to that of the Central platform and so, for example, the well head panels will be identical in design and supply.
The backbone of the entire installation is based around ABB’s Industrial IT. ABB is supplying systems based on its Industrial IT technology, which links products and services with the information needed to run, service and maintain them.
All operator displays, for example, are based on Internet Explorer. This provides a window into the control system using the operators intranet which means data can be viewed direct from platforms, from anywhere in the world.
Pipeline
After leaving the Sangachal terminal, the oil will flow through the pipeline for which ABB is supplying similar systems for the numerous pump and block valve stations along the pipeline route from Baku to the Ceyhan marine terminal. Here ABB’s AC 800M controllers are used for all of the 87 block valves along the pipeline.
The work includes remote-controlled subsystems to isolate sections of the pipeline for regular inspection and maintenance. The pipeline will be linked over its entire length by a fibre optic telecommunications backbone. Associated field instrumentation includes transmitters and ultrasonic flow metering for the terminal, valve and pumping stations.
"A cross-border technology solution is needed to make sure this extremely complex oil pipeline runs efficiently," says Nick Laming, Senior Vice-President, Oil & Gas Division. "Our Industrial IT platform is unique in that it handles both process and safety control in one system, rather than with separate systems, as is done traditionally. This is important to ensure pipeline efficiency, as well as environmental and personal safety."
Eventually the operators will be able to control processes at both ends of the pipeline. The pipeline is 1,755 km long starting at 42” diameter, increasing to 46” diameter and reducing to 34” diameter in Turkey. Along the pipeline route will be intermediate pumping stations, intermediate pigging stations, fiscal/ custody transfer metering, pressure reduction stations and block valve stations. The crude oil is collected and stored in tanks before being dispatched to tankers via a loading jetty located at Ceyhan.
When commissioned, the pipeline, which is the largest ever built, is expected to carry one million barrels of crude oil a day from Sangachal Terminal on Azerbaijan’s Caspian coast, near Baku through Georgia to a new marine terminal at Ceyhan on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean coast.
Gas project
The latest development is a major gas project for the Shah Deniz field which also includes an offshore platform and onshore terminal. The Shah Deniz condensate field lies in the Caspian Sea, about 100km south of Baku in water depths ranging from 50m to 500m. Here a gas pipeline is being constructed to supply gas to Turkey.
ABB is also supplying equipment to this part of the gas project including an integrated control and safety system (ICSS) for the new onshore gas terminal and offshore platform and the associated South Caucaus Pipeline (SCP).
This terminal will comprise two, 50% gas trains and is designed to produce 900mmscfd of sales gas into the SCP export pipeline.
Meanwhile, offshore, ABB is supplying another ICSS for the gas production and drilling platform.
The ICSS architecture for both the terminal and the platform installation comprises a number of standard PC hardware nodes, loaded with Windows 2000 based Operate IT operator workstation software and proprietary Control IT process controllers, safety controllers and I/O products connected together using standard Ethernet networks in a bus type topology.
ABB secured its first order for the project in December 2001, with deliveries continuing through to 2005. Site work will progress until 2007. Prior to this project, ABB’s biggest UK managed project was BNFL Thorp in the 1980s with a value to ABB of $45 million.
Maximising re-use
A key reason why ABB was selected for the Caspian Sea project was its ability to provide a common solution for all applications. This enabled ABB to re-use designs and solutions across all projects.
The Sangachal terminal, for example, will be able to monitor every aspect of the entire installation. But for this to be successful every part of the installation needs to be consistent. This was tackled by writing common functional design specifications for process control, fire and gas, shutdown, graphics, operator interfaces and type circuits with a standard hardware build. “Everything has a common look and feel,” says Clark.
“Re-use of technology and solutions are critical if this major installation is to be completed on time and within budget. We have ABB employees from some five different countries all heavily involved with the various stages. Re-use means that everyone is working to the same specifications, drawings, even down to using common software codes.”
ABB is drawing on its international resources by using its staff in India, Poland, United States, as well as training locals in Turkey and Azerbaijan to assist with this major project.
Assembly of the various panels is being carried out at ABB’s St Neots site in the UK, where some 190 workers from around the world have been assembled to design and build the systems.