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with it, and that presents a big challenge for getting the As a part of creating production, here is a subsea production tree that data back to the shore in a coherent form.” mounts at the well head.

Source: FMC Technologies

LOOK IN THE MIRROR “The reasons for these challenges are not so much

Others look at the situation and say these integration overcoming the technical hurdles, but rather not pro- challenges are a self-inficted problem — companies viding adequate attention to details,” he says. “As any have to deal with black boxes because they buy black systems integrator will attest, data interface issues such boxes. Gjerdseth says there are plenty of examples of al- as preferred communications protocol, data map struc- ternate systems that integrate without all the headache ture, IP addresses, data security handling, time syncing, because the operators chose an easier path. cabling specifcations, and so on, need to be reviewed “If you go to the Norwegian Continental Shelf, you will thoroughly and understood by both the equipment sup- see that the tradition there for many years has been to plier and the systems integrator prior to start of work. integrate a lot of the systems and automation,” she said. Too often, companies rush to issue (purchase orders) “There aren’t many black boxes. But if you go into the to their equipment vendors with little or no attention

Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and even the UK, you will see to data communications. If these defciencies are not that they have used many suppliers and are have a lot of caught and fxed during the factory acceptance test, different vendors’ systems as a result. Much depends on then they will defnitely pop up during commissioning the philosophy of your whole system: whether you want and start-up, resulting in additional integration costs one automation platform, or if you want every system and quite possibly delays in start-up.” to be proprietary.”

CREATING OPERATIONAL INTEGRATION

Gjerdseth’s contention is that when planned well, a project may still have small pockets of isolated systems Memories of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are still that need some extra work to bring into the larger fresh enough to keep safety front and center for offshore control system. That effort can be minimized if there projects. Integrating all the disparate control systems is a conscious effort from the outset to choose systems involved has to provide a means for operators to respond designed to interact. quickly to abnormal situations. Supporting this typically

On the other hand, poor planning has the opposite involves the creation of one overarching control strategy effect. Ben Trombatore, project manager for Mustang that can handle all the control, alarming, safety, and

Automation & Control has seen appropriate care at a reporting functions for this huge collection of hardware critical time can avoid problems when working with and disparate systems that is designed with varying control systems connected to packaged equipment. degrees of cooperation in mind. Without that, there can oedigital.com 137

August 2014 | OE REVIEW 133_OE0814_OE Review.indd 137 7/23/14 12:19 AM