Water Injection Pump Systems

Client

Sulzer and SBM offshore

Services / Products

Control panels / systems

Scope of Service

We were commissioned to design two systems for the automatic and safety control of two pump packages for a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) ship. The FPSO was owned by ExxonMobil and was to operate at a newly discovered oil Field offshore of Guyana.

The aim of the control systems was to provide reliable control of the newly installed Water Injection and Dead Oil Pumps.

The control systems were split into;

• Process control
• Functional Safety
• Condition Monitoring System
• Cybersecurity

Dual redundant powerful Siemens S7-400 414H processors were programmed using Siemens Step 7 software in order to ensure high availability and robustness of the process. The integrated Profibus DP redundant network of the Central Process Units were also configured in handle data collection from the remote I/O racks and cards.

The control system exchanges data via a dedicated industrial Ethernet OPC UA communications module to the site wide Simatic PCS7 Distributed Control System (DCS) for control, monitoring and alarm purposes. Our team was responsible for interpreting the various specifications to produce a series of design documents which were used to develop both hardware and software solutions.

Functional Design Specification (FDS) allowed the creation of the Process Control Software and HMI interface. The Serial Data Interface document populated all the OPC data exchange signals used site wide by the Simatic PCS7 Distributed Control System (DCS).

A Bently Nevada 3500 Vibration and Temperature condition monitoring system was introduced and programmed in order to ensure that the Pumps, their Gearboxes and their Drive Motors were protected from potential damage.

The Bently Nevada system was fitted with a Communication module which was configured as a slave in order to exchange data via Modbus RS-485 protocol through a dedicated Siemens master Modbus communication module.

The data from the condition monitoring system was then distributed to the HMI PC and to the site wide Siemens Simatic PCS7 Distributed Control System (DCS) for monitoring and alarm purposes.

A Serial Data Interface document was also issued which populated all the Modbus data registers to and from the Bently Nevada condition monitoring system.

Cybersecurity

Site specifications required strict Cybersecurity procedures and policies to be in place due to both the complexity and the sensitivity of the data. Segregation between the internal control system network and site wide network was achieved with the introduction of Allen Bradley Stratix 5400 Industrial Ethernet Managed Switches. High features of those switches such as VLAN layer 3 routing and Network Address Translation (NAT) were enabled and configured to the site administrator’s requirements.

An in depth Cybersecurity Procedures and Policies document was also produced.