Hydrocarbon Processing - April 2021 - GP-34

DIGITALIZATION
Real-time decision support. The
smart gas plant is based on an integrated,
hierarchical set of configurable dashboards that enables self-serve, contextualized access to operational intelligence,

using a modern, web-enabled visualization platform.
As a best practice, the smart dashboard should have a rolled-up summary
of all gas plant information, including

FIG. 1. Example of a smart, configurable gas plant summary dashboard.

FIG. 2. Plant block diagram showing different gas plant units and operating KPIs.

FIG. 3. Process display of an amine unit with environmental excursion events.

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integration with geospatial, safety and
environmental information, with the
ability to drill down through the portfolio of smart displays. The smart displays
should leverage exception-based, conditional formatting to communicate equipment status efficiently and effectively.
FIG. 1 is an example of a smart display
developed for a midstream company
with several gas plants in its asset portfolio. This smart display was configured
by dragging and dropping desired plant
attributes from a gas plant asset hierarchy onto a smart display canvas. As no
programming or coding is required, end
users can customize their own smart
displays or rely on standard, enterpriselevel smart displays. This display also has
a conditionally formatted geospatial map
layered with real-time information, such
as plant production rates. By selecting a
region on the map, further drill-down
details and intelligence can be accessed.
Additionally, the summary dashboard
has rollup KPIs, such as overall plant utilization and production, which are configured and managed by the plant SMEs.
The web-based dashboard also showcases financial KPIs, such as daily total
margin and margin per million standard
cubic feet (MMsft3) of feed gas. Other
information, such as safety days, can be
linked from associated data sources.
A user can drill down from this summary display to view a block diagram and
operating KPIs for each individual gas
plant in a specific region, such as NGL
and residue gas production rates, ethane
and propane recoveries, as well as C1/C2
and CO2/C2 component ratios (FIG. 2).
By selecting a block, a process flow diagram (PFD) of the unit with real-time
process values can be viewed.
Since the display shown in FIG. 3
is referencing an amine unit that uses
an underlying " no-code " digital twin
template,b the user can easily configure
this dashboard for one amine unit and
then reuse it for all other amine units
in the asset portfolio without modification. This capability significantly reduces smart display creation and management workloads.
This display also shows environmental excursion events, specifically when
the outlet H2S concentration from the
amine contactor exceeds 4 ppm, which is
an emissions limit. These environmental
excursion periods can be automatically

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Hydrocarbon Processing - April 2021

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