KKSCW Remediation / New Diatomite Implementation

Sentinel Peak Resources

Customer Background

Longtime customer Sentinel Peak Resources (SPR) is an upstream oil and gas company responsible for heavy oil development and extraction. The company owns and operates several sites throughout California, with most located in the Central Valley area. One of the most common and profitable ways to extract oil out of the ground in the Central Valley area is through a diatomite well, where steam is injected into the ground which loosens up the embedded oil, allowing it to pool together and be extracted. SPR has hundreds of these wells and works to ensure that the processes run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

With new infrastructure in place from the previous Valley Infrastructure Upgrade project, EA began a pilot project and rewrote the SCADA programming for a single diatomite well. The SCADA programming was written to take full advantage of the new features, enhanced navigation, hierarchy of information, and reduce implementation time in the upgraded system. The updates also fully implemented the newest standards for PLC graphics: high-performance graphics.

This programming became a template PLC program which was rolled out to hundreds of wells, ensuring that there were no unique, one-off pieces of code in the system. When implemented, the template program would run the wells with exactly the same features, options and capabilities.

SPR’s previous Allen Bradley CompactLogix SCADA systems were fixed program operations, which means that any changes, including minor set point updates, required a SCADA tech to go onsite and plug a laptop into the PLC. There was no consistency in the PLC programming and no documentation on how each site worked, causing a nightmare for maintenance and optimization.

Project Background

With new infrastructure in place from the previous Valley Infrastructure Upgrade project, EA began a pilot project and rewrote the SCADA programming for a single diatomite well. The SCADA programming was written to take full advantage of the new features, enhanced navigation, hierarchy of information, and reduce implementation time in the upgraded system. The updates also fully implemented the newest standards for PLC graphics: high-performance graphics.

This programming became a template PLC program which was rolled out to hundreds of wells, ensuring that there were no unique, one-off pieces of code in the system. When implemented, the template program would run the wells with exactly the same features, options and capabilities.

SPR’s previous Allen Bradley CompactLogix SCADA systems were fixed program operations, which means that any changes, including minor set point updates, required a SCADA tech to go onsite and plug a laptop into the PLC. There was no consistency in the PLC programming and no documentation on how each site worked, causing a nightmare for maintenance and optimization.

With the AVEVA InTouch SCADA software upgrades in place, the client wanted to add functionality to the system so its engineers could get good data and continually tweak the process to maximize the efficiency of oil extraction.

EA Solutions

Since SPR did not have any process documentation, EA’s first step was to sit down with the stakeholders and walk through how the previous system worked, from start to finish, and any changes they wanted in the new system. The most significant change request was to adopt the high-performance graphics methodology for all their SCADA interfaces

EA then began to create a standardized PLC template that included an entire library of code and high-performance graphics. With the infrastructure replaced in the Valley Infrastructure Upgrade project, the only hardware needed for this project was to replace the outdated 1769-L35E Allen Bradley PLCs with new Allen Bradley CompactLogix 5069-L330ER. Once the template was ready for onsite commissioning, EA started installation at the pilot location.

As the template wrapped up at the initial site, EA furthered the pilot to additional locations in the immediate area. For three months, EA and SPR collected data and continued to fine tune the system. Once the template was finalized, EA created extensive documentation, procedures, and checklists for the system. EA provided in-depth training to SPR’s SCADA techs on all of the deliverables so that they could complete the rest of the upgrades for their hundreds of wells.

Summary

Enterprise Automation created a standardized template with a deliberate hierarchy of information and screen organization for their diatomite wells and all the PLC and SCADA-controlled assets. EA also built an entire library of code and graphical standards in the new high-performance style which has become SPR’s standard moving forward. With the extensive documentation created by EA which covers all aspects of the new assets including standardized commissioning procedures, SPR can now better train personnel and maintain their equipment to optimize the oil extraction process. Thanks to the collaboration between EA and SPR, the project was very successful and has become the standard for future programs.