posted on 7/13/2011 4:12:51 PM
In two announcements this week, the automation company said it has partnered with SAP to create a closed-loop management system for operations performance, and disclosed a deal with Ithaca Energy that will use the company’s manufacturing intelligence and safety technology to manage the new Athena Field oil field in the North Sea.
Automation and control company Honeywell this week announced two strategic partnerships that combine manufacturing intelligence, business analytics, and operations management technologies to help companies in the oil and gas industry safely and efficiently run their operations.
To address the large-scale needs of the oil and gas market, the Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) group and SAP AG have inked an agreement to deliver integrated offerings that combine SAP’s BusinessObjects analytic applications with Honeywell’s production management and scheduling software.
According to the companies, through the use of SAP BusinessObjects, data from disparate plant and enterprise sources can be combined and analyzed, enabling clear communication and better decision support that will avoid production downtime.
“Our integrated portfolio will help oil and gas operations run better by enabling the closed-loop management of operations performance,” Kerstin Geiger, co-head of SAP’s Industries Solution Management, said in a statement. Furthermore, the partnership will tap into SAP’s in-memory and mobility solutions, Geiger said.
The Honeywell/SAP partnership is said to address the knowledge gap between business and operations groups in both upstream and downstream oil and gas organizations through greater sharing, collaboration, and analysis of relevant data generated at both the plant level and across the enterprise.
In a separate, project-specific announcement, Honeywell said that Ithaca Energy Ltd. has selected HPS’ Well Performance Monitor (WPM) technology to manage the operations of its new Athena oil field in the North Sea. The agreement illustrates the growing adoption of digital oil field management technology among the major global oil and gas operators, the company said.
The Athena Field, which is expected to produce approximately 22,000 barrels of oil per day when it comes into production at the end of this year, is a joint venture between Ithaca Energy, Dyas UK, EWE, and Zeus Petroleum. Ithaca Energy, which is the operator of the project, chose HPS’ WPM, powered by Matrikon, a company specializing in plant safety that Honeywell acquired last year.
Using WPM, Ithaca Energy’s engineers can monitor how wells are performing compared to their expectations, while visual models can predict what each well is capable of producing. The solution, leveraging some manufacturing intelligence, is said to extract summary information and key performance indicators from real-time process data historians, production databases, and engineering well models, allowing operators to visualize field performance data and manage equipment assets. Engineers can see where the shortfalls in production are occurring and take immediate steps to correct them. WPM will also help personnel manage the costs of surveillance, identify abnormal situations quickly, and react faster to disturbances.
“Honeywell’s Well Performance Monitor matched our requirements perfectly,” said Marco Peña, operations petroleum engineer at Ithaca Energy, in a statement. “It was cost effective and easy to implement—literally out of the box. But the real value is in what it delivers. Allowing us to have the system up and running before the facility is operational is a huge plus, as is giving us access to real-time information to pinpoint underperforming wells, and, last but not least, to help improve collaboration throughout the team.”