Automind signs contract for the implementation of Autoload® in three Petrobahia bases

The technical evaluation of the project started in July last year, with Automind as a participant, as well as other players national and international supply of automation systems for terminals.

The technical evaluation process was led by Ricardo Andrade, Petrobahia's PP&D Manager. “Since it is a large investment for Petrobahia, we dedicate the necessary time to a technical evaluation of the products on the market. We decided not to be in a hurry at this stage of the process, identifying in a quantitative and qualitative way the fulfillment of our requirements”, pointed out Ricardo Andrade.

“We knew that no product on the market would completely meet our expectations. It would be necessary to carry out customizations to comply with all the business rules demanded in our process meetings, however, it would not be economically viable to acquire a system of this nature. We were looking for consolidated solutions with a solid installed base. A product that met most of our requirements with native functionalities and that had the flexibility to perform customizations”, continued Ricardo Andrade.

The best solution was presented by Automind and culminated in the acquisition of Autoload^® by Petrobahia, more specifically the scheduling, access control, queue control, loading and unloading, pump and inventory control modules, in addition to a customization package to meet ten specific business rules.

“The time dedicated by Petrobahia in the technical evaluation process contributed a lot to the clear definition of the scope to be offered. As the three bases were included in the evaluation process, meeting the requirements will allow all to have a single version of Autoload^®, even with customizations, directly and positively impacting system implementation costs, which made our offer more competitive”, commented Automind's Business Director, Adriano Macário.

The Autoload Deployment Deadline^® in the three bases it is 240 calendar days, with a forecast to end in December of this year.

Pipeline Leak Detection System

According to Bolonkin (2008), pipelines are, in general, the most economical way to transport large amounts of oil or natural gas over land. Compared to railways, this modal has a lower cost per unit and greater capacity. In addition, it works 24/7, except during maintenance. Interruptions that may affect the transportation period, such as weather or traffic, do not affect pipeline operation.

However, a significant disadvantage of using this type of transport is the possibility of leaks that may occur as a result of erosion, corrosion, landslides, acts of vandalism, actions of third parties, among others. Due to the high pressure at which the products are pumped and, depending on the type of substance transported, these leaks can cause serious environmental and socioeconomic damage.

With this in mind, oil and gas transportation companies are continually looking for more sensitive, accurate, repeatable, reliable and robust leak detection systems (SDVs). The American standard API 1149 defines these characteristics as follows:

Sensitivity: the smallest loss that can be detected (with confidence)
Accuracy: The accuracy at which the size and location of the leak can be estimated
Reliability: the confidence that can be attached to any reported loss
Availability/Robustness: The uptime that can be expected from the SDV under normal conditions; and also the resilience of the SDV to unexpected conditions

There are several technologies for leak detection that have different advantages, disadvantages and levels of complexity. The API 1130 standard classifies these technologies into two types:

External systems, which depend on specific hardware, instrumentation or sensors to operate, such as optical fiber, acoustic emission detectors, etc.;
Internal systems, which use existing infrastructure, such as mass or energy balance, RTTM (Real Time Transient Model), statistical analysis, etc.

One system that currently protects more than 11,000 miles of pipeline around the world is the Synergi Pipeline Simulator (SPS), which combines Statefinder and Leakfinder modules. These modules are based on the represented states (variable conditions) of a pipeline system.

For the system to perform as expected, it is necessary to create a hydraulic model of the pipeline, provide real-time measurement data from SCADA, and also provide consistent fluid property data. Thus, through the field data and the fundamental laws of fluid mechanics, the model will track conditions very close to the real pipeline and investigate temporal anomalies between the measured data and the model.

One mechanism that the SPS uses to reconcile differences between measured and modeled head losses are diagnostic flows, which are flows injected or removed from the model to preserve the mass balance when there is a discrepancy. If average diagnostic flows exceed a predefined dynamic threshold, the software will:

Alarm;
Define the type of abnormality;
Define the confidence level of the alarm.

There are 5 alarm statuses: (1) Starting (in case detection has been turned off), (2) Okay (there is no abnormality), (3) Circulation (indicates circulation has occurred), (4) Injection (indicates flow injection) and (5) Leak (indicates leakage). Statuses 3 and 4 normally indicate modeling or instrumentation problems, as they are very unusual events to occur in an operating pipeline.

It is important to note that, as stated in Annex A of API 1130, no CPM (Computational Pipeline Monitoring) methodology or technology is applicable to all pipelines, because each system has an exclusive configuration and operation. Furthermore, detection limits are difficult to quantify due to the unique characteristics presented by each pipeline. Boundaries must be determined and validated, system by system, and perhaps section by section. Pipeline operating conditions (steady state or transient) will influence the minimum size of product loss that can be detected so detection limits for CPMs are not fixed. During transients the detection limits are higher.

Another factor that must be highlighted is that efficiency objectives (sensitivity, accuracy, repeatability, reliability, availability and robustness) are often at odds with each other. For example, high sensitivity in leak detection generally leads to more false alarms and, consequently, lower reliability, so it is essential that tuning is carried out and monitored according to the main relevant points defined by the customer.

AutoLoad® connectivity is extended with Smith Meter AccuLoad IV homologation

With the addition of the communication driver for the AccuLoad IV, AutoLoad® offers its customers the possibility of integrating eight preset models from different manufacturers. In addition to AccuLoad IV, we have AccuLoad III, AccuLoad III.net and MicroLoad from TechnipFMC, Fusion4 MSC-L from Honeywell, Danload-6000 and DL-8000 from Emerson and TCC from Unidata.

In addition to electronic flow predeterminers, AutoLoad® has communication drivers for various field devices such as road scales, access control units, electronic panels, PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers), URVs (Vapor Recovery Units) and odorization, in addition to interfacing with telemetry systems for tanks and motorized valves, firefighting systems and the main corporate systems on the market.

“Automind's positioning is that of a company that provides Integrated Automation Technology Solutions, on a turnkey basis, consisting of services, software and equipment, covering the stages of conception, implementation and maintenance. For the logistics segment, we offer our TMS (Terminal Management System), AutoLoad®. We constantly seek to update AutoLoad®, including new features demanded by the market and the integration of new control devices for terminals, mainly electronic flow predeterminers, providing our customers with flexibility in choosing equipment to control their process”, commented the Director of Business at Automind, Adriano Macário.

AutoLoad® is installed or in the process of being installed in more than 50 terminals in Latin America.