2009-08-26 - ABB provides seamlessly integrated power and automation solutions for some of the largest and most highly complex production facilities in the world – a capability that brings substantial benefits to customers during project execution and process operation.
By ABB Communications
These large-scale integrated electrical and automation solutions span across a broad range of industries from oil and gas installations and petroleum refineries, to pulp and paper mills, cement works, metals and mineral processing facilities, solar energy and power generation plants, and some of the biggest container vessels and cruise ships in the world.
Time and again the benefits of large-scale ABB solutions have resulted in faster project execution, reduced re-engineering, better project quality and higher plant operational efficiency
One of numerous examples is ABB’s process-wide solution for the StatoilHydro Snøhvit gas field and Melkøya liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Norway, both of which went onstream in 2007.
Snøhvit is a highly complex installation in which gas is extracted from three fields 143 kilometers offshore in the Barents Sea, piped to the onshore terminal, processed into LNG, stored in tanks and loaded onto LNG carriers for transportation to consumer markets in Europe and the United States.
ABB’s scope of delivery for the gas fields and onshore LNG liquefaction plant and export terminal was extensive and the impact of its integrated solutions on productivity, energy efficiency and grid stability has been immense.
| ABB integrated solutions for the most complex production problems |
|---|
|
Artist’s impression of the subsea gas fields, pipelines and Melkøya LNG plant and terminal. Snøhvit is a very complex installation.
The process is extensive, encompassing subsea control processing, complex LNG processes, and storage and loading of the final products.(Image source: StatoilHydro)
|
ABB provided the subsea (now Vetco Gray) and topside automation systems that control production in the gas fields and monitor the pipelines through which the gas is pumped onshore.
A staggering number of signals run through ABB systems at any given time - some 40,000 in the electrical control system and more than 30,000 in the safety and process automation system
Both systems are integrated for topside control and visualization in the combined safety and automation system (SAS) - also provided by ABB - for the onshore LNG plant, which is the most critical part of the entire facility.
An equally vast ABB electrical control and supervision system (ECSS) integrates and communicates with the thousands of ABB motors, switches, contactors, circuit breakers and drives as well as third party equipment across the onshore liquefaction plant and LNG terminal.
A vital part of the ECSS is the ABB Power Management System which monitors, controls and protects the entire plant and prevents, among other things, the effects of a relatively minor fault from cascading into a multi-million-dollar shutdown.
Read a detailed account of the ABB solution for Snøhvit from the ABB Review