Cluster Pumping Station Automation of Oil and Gas Reservoir Pressure Maintenance

Ovak Technologies provides a wide range of engineering services such as software engineering, hardware design, algorithm engineering, algorithm implementation and field test services for specific oil and gas industry problems. The designs, prototypes and deployments are implemented using the National Instruments system design platform. The highly experienced team has obtained an exclusive practical and theoretical knowledgebase mainly in the oil industry. We develop superior solutions that have been successfully implemented by our customers.

The modern approach to oil production automation dictates strict requirements for control and monitoring of cluster pumping station (CPS) hardware and software. This is because of the depletion of oil reservoirs, high cost of electricity, and the tendency of oil companies to reduce well maintenance costs, increase operational functionality, and decrease human involvement.

The CPS is designed to pump water into the oil reservoir. The system contains power and pump blocks. The pump blocks increase water pressure to a level that provides water injection into wells of the reservoir pressure maintenance system. The power blocks are used for automatic control of pump units, parameter control, alarming, automatic pump unit shut-off, reserve unit switching, and equipment protection when process parameters change beyond admissible limits.

The automated control system is based on the reconfigurable CompactRIO platform. This technology is customized to be used as an embedded automated technological process control system working 24/7 in real-Time over a wide temperature range (-40◦C to 70◦C) under elevated vibration conditions, and it can withstand fast impacts of up to 50 g. The controller allows users to connect to different types of third-party devices and analog/digital sensors. The developed software is an automated monitoring and control system based on data collected from liquid meters, climatic condition sensors in production areas, pump units, electric meters, tanker controllers, alarming devices, and devices for modem queries. The system can work with both NI cRIO-9073 and NI cRIO-9074 controllers, depending on the customer’s needs.

The software is based on the LabVIEW Real-Time Module. With LabVIEW it is easier and faster to produce code with a nice graphical user interfaces. LabVIEW provides us with a platform to easily write automation code for systems such as cluster pump stations.

The whole system was developed with LabVIEW system design software. Since the CompactRIO platform was chosen to develop the project, and it is an advanced embedded control and monitoring system that includes a real-time processor, field-programmable gate array (FPGA), and interchangeable C Series modules, the NI LabVIEW Real-Time and NI LabVIEW FPGA modules were also used. This allowed us to create a reliable, stand-alone embedded system with a graphical programming approach that runs for extended periods of time. The NI Modbus Library for LabVIEW was also used for Modbus communication between the CompactRIO and Set of Technical Tools (STT) Napor, canal, flow-meters IVK, MR, Rapira.

We selected NI cRIO-9073 and NI cRIO-9074 controllers, an NI 9871 serial interface module, an NI 9208 analog input module, an NI 9426 digital input module, and an NI 9476 digital output module. Serial interfaces communicate with third-party devices, such as STT Napor, STT Canal, flow-meters IVK, MR, Rapira, electric-meter Mercury. Analog inputs read pump intake pressure, pump discharge pressure, temperature, and gas concentration. Digital inputs read the state of the doors, valves, and pumps, and the digital outputs control the state of the pumps (on/off). 

The Benefits of Our New Solution

Our new solution is safer, easy to maintain and monitor, flexible, and more energy efficient. It has an easy-to-use graphical user interface and information can be communicated in real time either via a wireless radio channel or Ethernet. The system works with a variety of equipment manufacture in the United States and Russia and can operate in harsh climates. 

The NI software and hardware configuration allowed us to develop the CPS automation system in four months. This system replaced the old equipment, 70 percent of which was no longer in operational condition.

Overall, we chose the CompactRIO embedded system because it provides a complete solution that contains a real-time processor to perform time-critical algorithms, an extendable interface to handle various sensor signals simultaneously, and is fully supported by LabVIEW. In addition, the modularity of the equipment gives us the option of future system expansion.

We achieved excellent results by developing and installing such a complex system in such a short amount of time. We also had frequent interaction with the NI Russia office throughout project.

Author Information:

Ovak Technologies
info@ovaktechnologies.com