Introduction | Typical configurations | Clients
Introduction to the petrochemical industry and its requirements
There are numerous types of petrochemicals and petrochemical end products. Since feed stocks such as oil and natural gas and the resulting petrochemical products vary, there are a number of production methods. The differing factors (feed stocks, end products, production method and location) result in numerous types and configurations of petrochemical plants. The j5 system can be tailored to meet the needs of all the various components and configurations of petrochemical plants, no matter the size or complexity of the operation.
As the market leader in industrial control room logbooks, j5 is chosen by many process control engineers to address the needs of petrochemical sites in the areas of critical data capture, analysis and reporting. The j5 system is a complete petrochemical logging package designed to replace home-developed systems that use paper logs, Excel, Wikis and other systems, engineered to enhance the productivity, safety and reliability of your plant. It is designed to form a critical user interface between operations, planning, management and engineering by interfacing seamlessly with the various different applications like the Maintenance Applications, LIMS and Planning Systems as well as the DCS or SCADA systems.
Complexity
Petrochemical sites are typically more complex than other chemical processes. This means that any logging system must offer premium navigation and organizational facilities like advanced menus, filtering and searching capabilities.
- There needs to be an easy way to link different systems together so that these (often very different) systems can interact effectively just like the real world processes that they monitor.
- The logging facilities must support a high number (often hundreds) of users and this means that an efficient means of distributing the information and controlling lots of personnel data is required.
- There is a need to store large amounts of information and to be able to access this information quickly and easily, meaning the logging application must store the information in a standard relational database and must support various kinds of advanced queries.
To manage the complexity, much of the logging system must be automated. This implies that the system requires a powerful scripting mechanism coupled with an in-built scheduler that can access all the subsystems in a clear, logical and maintainable way.
Applications such as the j5 Operator Logbook, Handover Logbook and Shift reports and Personnel Manager are ideally suited to handle the demands and requirements of the complex processes in the plant with ease, ensuring a smooth-running, productive and efficient operation.
Safety
A petrochemical facility is a hazardous area, more so than most industrial sites, demanding numerous additional design and implementation requirements to enhance safety.
- The logging system will be required to operate with strict safety business rules and must be able to facilitate the enforcement of the (often complex) safety procedures.
- The logging system must empower the operations team with up-to-date information on the location of staff and the status of safety-critical equipment.
- For maintaining a safe operating environment, it is necessary to analyze all unplanned incidents as quickly and as thoroughly as possible as well as continuously monitoring potential hazards. The logging system should be able to dynamically store relevant information from all sources on the facility and immediately report on any out-of-normal data.
j5 offers features such as the Hazard Management and Incident and Near Miss applications to ensure that safety concerns are reliably dealt with, ensuring security and confidence in operations.
j5 also meets the many other requirements in a petrochemical plant:
- It reliably collects real-time and historical information from the DCS or SCADA system.
- It has an advanced means of capturing manually entered information.
- It has an elegant means of coordinating this information together so that the information can be stored and distributed to the relevant parties or compliance bodies.
- It seamlessly interfaces with other sub-systems involved in both process (DCS, PLC, SCADA) and management (MRP and ERP), as well as third-party software such as Intelatrac TM and OPC PI.
- It boasts both a time-proven logical and scalable architecture and enormous flexibility to meet the needs of the vastly different applications such as Handover Logs, Equipment Maintenance Logs, Calibration Logs and Oil Movements Logs.
- Scalability means new applications to be quickly designed, implemented and commissioned and then added to the structure where non-standard, site-specific applications are required.
- With support for LDAP authentication, j5 enforces the strict security requirements ensuring that only authorized personnel may access the system via a comprehensive authority based structure centered on user groups.
Suggested j5 configuration for the Petrochemical Industry
To cater for the specific needs of the petrochemical industry, St James Software has developed a range of applications and modules. Which modules a plant chooses, obviously depends on the setup and architecture of the plant and hence its specific needs. The following is a typical example:
The plant will first install a basic standard j5 setup, consisting of:
Shift Reports
Work Instructions
The plant may then select industry-relevant optional extras such as:
Incident and Near-miss Management
j5 Pipeline Manager
j5 Oil Movements Manager
Workforce management
j5 LIMS System
j5 Intelatrac Module
3rd party interface Applications
Calibration Logs
Ship Unloading
Some of our clients in the Petrochemical Industry
The following are some of our many clients in the petrochemical industry:
PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela SA), based in Venezuala have a 400-user j5 System.
COLP (Compañía Operadora de LNG) based in Peru have a multi-application j5 system.
OGDCl (Oil and Gas Development Company Limited) is the national oil & gas company of Pakistan and the flagship of the country’s E&P sector.
Cheniere Corporation - Unlimited Users.
Aramco PetroRabigh – Unlimited Users in 19 Control Rooms.
SATORP in Saudi Arabia – 150 Users.
Wakayama Refinery in Japan – Unlimited Users.
JX Energy in Japan – 11 Refineries.