TAIL INTEGRATEDOPERATIONS

PROJECT NEWSLETTER 02

indeXEditor: Arne Ulrik Bindingsbø, Svein Vatland, Hilde Omsted Design: LoopDesign.no Photo: StatoilHydro - ABB - IBM

The TAIL IO newsletter shares with you some of the challenges and results achiev-ed in the TAIL IO project. We hope that you will enjoy the reading and get a better understanding of what TAIL IO is all about.

TAIL IO has been in “production” since January 1st 2006 and has a lot of exiting results on its way in the pipeline. It is great to see how cross discipline, cross company, cross cultural and cross geogra-phy teams collaborate to create results together – as we say - collaborate to innovate. This is R&D in the true spirit of integrated operations and a complete IO compliant project.

We have a dedicated team committed to deliver first class innovations to support StatoilHydro in achieving their overall goals for extending the lifetime of StatoilHydro’s oil and gas fields:

- increase daily production by at least 5 percent by reducing production losses caused by opera- tional failure, maintenance stops and inadequate equipment performance

- reduce operating, construction and maintenance costs by 30 percent

- reduce the number of unwanted incidents relat- ing to health, safety and the environment (HSE)

If you have any questions or issues you would like to discuss in more details with members of the TAIL IO team, don’t hesitate to contact us.

We have teamed up our best engineers and re-searchers to develop the next generation oil and gas facilities – WE TAKE THE CHALLENGE.

Svein Vatland Arne Ulrik Bindingsbø

TAIL IO Project Management teamsvein.vatland@no.abb.comabin@statoilhydro.com

StatoilHydro defines integrated operations (IO) as “collaboration across disciplines, companies, organizational and geographi-cal boundaries, made possible by real-time data and new work processes, in order to reach safer and better decisions – faster.” To help identify the methods, tech-nologies and work processes necessary to integrate its oper-ations, StatoilHydro appointed a R&D consortium consisting of ABB, IBM, SKF and Aker Solu-tions.

The consortium and StatoilHydro are each contributing equally to the proj-ect in terms of input and resources. In addition, the Norwegian Research Council is a major contributor to the funding of the project. The total bud-get is $40 million and will run for a pe-riod of three and a half years.

As the name suggest, TAIL IO is aimed at improving operations at fields approaching the end of their life-spans. Tail-end production is a major challenge facing all oil and gas com-panies. It is the stage where the pro-duction rate is declining, the facilities are ageing, and the cost of operation is high. Extending the economic life-time of these fields is vital to all com-panies, especially those operating in the Norwegian shelf. However, most of the solutions developed in TAIL IO are also applicable for green field installations.

The Ta il IO project:Dear reader

Arne Ulrik Bindingsbø

Svein Vatland

2:3:4:6: 8:

Project Manager CornerThe TAIL IO projectIntegrated Information Framework (F0)Condition and performance monitoring (F1)New and more efficient turnaround processes (F2)

PM’s corner

Specifications subjects to change without notice. Pictures, schematics and other graphics contained herein are published for illustration purposes only and do not represent product configurations or functionality.

Editor: Arne Ulrik Bindingsbø, Svein Vatland, Hilde Omsted Design: LoopDesign.no Photo: StatoilHydro - ABB - IBM

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TAIL – Integrated OperationsTAIL IO is divided into seven technology ar-eas. Each technology area is closely linked with the others and there is a high degree of collaboration between the areas.

F0: Common integration architecture A critical success factor for fully integrated operations is access to real-time infor-mation about production, equipment and performance from processing and opera-tional units across the organization. This is achieved through a common architecture for the operations and maintenance sys-tems, which make it easy to find, interpret and understand real-time data across all fa-cilities. The integration of data from control and monitoring systems with the overall ad-ministrative systems, support of corporate as well as plant specific work processes and goals, will strengthen the integration be-tween offshore and onshore.

F1: Condition and performance monitoring The objective of the project is to review and develop systems, methods and work processes to enhance and improve condi-tion based maintenance in StatoilHydro. The project is developing methods for early fault detection and residual life prediction and for condition monitoring of critical as-sets such as electrical, rotating and static equipment.

F2: Turnarounds and shutdownsThe goal is to develop a tool that can accom-modate a vast and complex range of data with the ultimate objective of minimizing asset shutdowns.

F3: Wireless communicationThe objectives are design of new and open wireless communication systems, installa-tion of wireless instrumentation to reduce

The Ta il IO project:

cabling and capital expenditure and automa-tion of maintenance tasks to reduce mainte-nance man-hours.

F4: Collaborative visualisationThe aim is to develop tools that can supporta wide range of functions to perform main-tenance operations, diagnostics and improve the level of assistance from centres of excel-lence.

F5: Mobile ICT infrastructureThe focus is on man-machine technology, work processes/RFID and mobile ICT infra-structure that support plant personnel. The growing deployment of wireless networks and devices is making it increasingly possible for maintenance technicians to have continu-ous access to support systems and personnel via a wireless connection and PDA (personal digital assistant).

F6: Robotics technologyThis subproject concentrates on robotics technology to supplement and extend hu-man inspection and intervention capa-bil-ities at subsea, topside and onshore facili-ties. The objective is to develop solutions that combine tele-robotics and advanced visualisation to enable remotely operated inspection and maintenance operations, as well as to identify and close technology gaps.

9:10:13:14:

Wireless Communication and sensor systems (F�) Collaborative visualisation (F4)Mobile ICT to support the field worker (F5)Robotics (F6)

F0

Contact Info:

joined through common architecture and real time integration

The collection of real-time informa-tion about production, equipment and performance status from pro-cessing and operational units across the organization is a critical success factor to achieve completely inte-grated operations.

Integrated Operations (IO) is enabled through monitoring of real-time data. Real-time or historical data collected at the plant floor must be made available in control rooms, in collaboration rooms likeoperational centers, and to managerial functions with responsibilities related to production operation, well operations, maintenance, and logistics. Through a closer integration of data from control and monitoring systems with the overall information system solutions, support of corporate as well as plant specific work processes and goals are optimized. A critical success factor for the IO concept is a close relationship between industrial IT, enterprise IT and administrative do-mains.- The real-time information must be collected across the organization from any oil field or plant and made accessible for analysis and comparison. We have all this data, but we need to structure it to common concepts to make it easy to find and to understand, explains Helle Stolz, in-dustrial IT discipline advisor, StatoilHydro. - The project task is to strengthen the integration of sea and land-based activi-ties, a task hosting many challenges. To achieve this goal we have developed solu-tion components based on requirements

from StatoilHydro that is piloted through the TAIL F0 project. This solution will en-able the integration of real-time data from the control- and operational sys-tems with the administrative systems like SAP and PROSTY, allowing the processing and operational units to establish new flexible business solutions with seamless access to information and services across the corporation, says Øystein Haaland, consortium sub-project manager.

The real-time information integrationproject in detail The TAIL F0 project is piloting a common Real-Time Integration Solution based on the IBM Information Integration Frame-work (IIF) , planned to support a common integrated architecture across TAIL and eventually across StatoilHydro facilities and enterprise domains. The key prerequisites of the solution are based on SOA components. The initial solution aims to integrate real-time and historical data for operations and main-tenance at two StatoilHydro facilities through a carefully chosen set of test cases.This pilot will verify that information from several facilities can be uniquely ac-cessed, processed and visualized through the same applications and services.In the TAIL IO project, all the subprojects target specific essential IO concepts for safe and cost-efficient operation of fa-cilities. The real-time solution extends the enterprise-wide integration to also include a common architecture founda-tion for operations and maintenance, thus

providing common information integration models for the entire oil and gas industry.To facilitate the adoption across the TAIL projects, and subsequently StatoilHydro, the F0 project also targets the establish-ment of an architecture governance model and additionally an Integration Competency Practice, providing guidance and expertresources.Verification and fine-tuning of the integra-tion practice will be carried out through integration of the other TAIL projects. The final specifications of the application for the Common Architecture and the Real time Integration Solution will then be completed, with subsequent proposal for implementa-tion and rollout.

Business benefitsImportant business benefits are being targeted: lower operation costs and accel-erated production through faster rollout of new operations, maintenance processes and applications across StatoilHydro’s vari-ous assets, and also faster standardization of processes and applications. Further ad-vantage is expected from reduced imple-mentation and standardization costs.- There are practically no changes required to operating assets, therefore replacement costs are minimized, says Øystein Haaland. – The information is accessed directly at its source, ensuring that information is cor-rect and up to date. We also expect to see a considerable efficiency improvement by eliminating many complex, expensive and time-consuming interfaces, he continues.

F0: Integrated Information Framework

Offshore and onshore activities

Real time integration

Øystein Haaland: oystein.haaland@no.ibm.com Anders Røyrøy: aroy@statoilhydro.com

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Photo: Øyvind Hagen

We want to give a warning on what may become a problem days, weeks, and even months ahead.

The topic early fault detection includes a chain of challenges such as: data acquis-ition, data mining methods and techniques, work processes and user interfaces. The work on early fault detection includes the following activities:

EFDD – Early Fault and Disturbance De-tection:The project goal is to develop a software tool that will provide data driven methods for process modelling and analysis, based on both time and frequency domain tech-niques – originating from StatoilHydro and ABB, respectively. Methods are being verified against field data from Åsgard B a production platform.

EEW – Event Early Warning: This is based on IBM’s patented EEW tech-nology. The approach is based on identify-ing patterns and logical dependencies in the data. A potential pilot is on the detec-tion of malfunction and sub-performance of the separators on Heidrun, a TLP

Residual Life PredictionThe project goal is twofold: to verify an al-gorithm that predicts the remaining useful life of machine or machine components, and, successively, to combine economics and criticality to the algorithm to enable economic-and safety-based replacement decisions (to replace or not to replace).

SKF will utilize logged vibration levels and events data from certain pumps at Heidrun. The predictive algorithms re-quire these data to build the model that describes how pumps have deteriorated under various loading conditions and how they will detoriate under various future operational scenarios.

Finding data sets of good quality, and also enough data, has been challenging. The pumps at Heidrun have been logged for 15 years and the data sets looks promising. These data are currently being fed into the algorithms. The proposed algorithm can be applied to any kind of machin-ery, given available logs of condition monitor-ing and events, the TAIL project will dem-onstrate this generic technology for a pump application.

Electrical equipmentElectrical equipment such as generators, transformers, switchgear, drives and motors are classified as critical in most industrial applications and the mainten-ance cost for this category of equipment is also considerable. Logging and analyzing several different but supporting measure-ments facilitates accurate predictions of the condition of the electrical equipment itself and sometimes also about the loads that are being fed. Downtime due to elec-trical black-outs can be avoided because maintenance, such as lubing or replacing bearings on motors and generators or re-placing worn circuit breaker contacts, can be planned more efficiently.

The work on condition monitoring of elec-trical equipment includes the following activities:

Drive Monitor The Drive Monitor for variable speed drives logs and analyzes several param-eters such as shaft torque, phase current and phase voltages. Based on these data the Drive Monitor can return valuable in-formation regarding the status of the fre-quency converter and the drive itself.

A main goal for the project is to demon-strate how the Drive Monitor can be ac-cessed from remote locations in a safe and efficient way. This enables experts located anywhere on the globe to get ac-cess to the information in the drive moni-tor upon demand. The experts are able to do fault analysis and corrective work without actually visiting the location where the drive is.

The pilot installation is in operation at Kollsnes and evaluation is currently going on.

Condition and performance monitoring

Condition based maintenance is a central part of StatoilHydro’s maintenance strategies. The method implies that maintenance operations are managed accord-ing to reliable prognosis of the wear and tear of the equipment. Condition based maintenance systems ensures reliability and integrity of the equipment Themethod also provides cost reduct-ions by reducing unplanned downtime, operation closer to the design limit and by facilitat-ing more structured maintenance planning. The key to condition based maintenance is real-time monitoring and reporting tech-nology.

Project F1, Condition and perfor-mance monitoring, focuses on condi-tion- and performance monitoring of critical sub-sea and topside equip-ment. The objective of the project is to review and develop systems, methods and work processes to en-hance and improve condition based maintenance in StatoilHydro.

Effective lifecycle management re-quires continuous tracking of asset history when it comes to operation, wear, damage and maintenance. Careful monitoring of the condition and performance of assets allows the implementation of predictive mainte-nance programs that might signifi-cantly reduce maintenance costs and risk of asset failure. Without this information, performance suffers and maintenance costs rise.

The F1 project group is working on several solutions that focus on condi-tion and performance monitoring, in the following some examples of ongo-ing work is presented.

Early Fault DetectionDespite the term fault detection, we are concerned with every aspect of performance monitoring: process malfunction, instrumentation degra-dation, suboptimal process behavior, and internal or external disturbances. A special focus is on early detec-tion, meaning that we try to identify trends at an early stage where they are otherwise difficult to observe.

F1:

Drive Monitor installed at Kollsnes…….

F1Contact Info:Tor Ole Bang- Steinsvik: Tor-Ole. Bang-Steinsvik@no.abb.com Morten Løes: mloe@statoilhydro.com

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Drive Monitor for Performance and Condition MonitoringThe Drive Monitor can also return valuable information regarding process perform-ance. Process outliers, process deviation and changes can be logged. Peformance analysis of compressors can be facilitated by comparing drive speed and torque and matching these measurements with data from the conventional process instru-ments reporting on pressures and tem-peratures.

Also, the Drive Monitor can perform fre-quency spectrum analysis of the phase currents and voltages. This can potentially provide the basis for predicting faulty rotor and stator bars in the drive as well as in-dicating gear and bearing failures both in the drive and in a rotating load.

The pilot installation of the Drive Monitor at the gas treatment facility Kollsnes is intended to be upgraded with these ad-vanced capabilities shortly.

Online Electric Signal Analysis Condition MonitoringElectrical Signal Analysis (ESA) is singled out as an area of particular interest. In theory, the method holds the promise to give reliable information about the occur-rence of faulty rotor and stator bars in electrical motors as well as predicting gear and bearing failures in a rotating load.

The main motivation for ESA is that the method significantly reduces the amount of wiring compared to conventional con-dition monitoring systems using wired vi-bration sensors placed on the equipment. This is an important advantage as instal-lation of sensor wiring is time consuming and sometimes difficult, particularly in retro-fit projects.

Non-Intrusive Inspection of Static equipmentPressure vessels and pressure systems are required to undergo periodic statu-tory inspection to ensure continued safe and reliable operation. Today this is nor-mally done by means of an internal visual inspection which involves high costs asso-ciated with shutting down a vessel (loss of production), isolating it and preparing for it for entry. In addition, entry of the vessel might be hazardous.

Aker Solutions are developing capability within the field of non-intrusive inspec-tions methods, combined with extensive experience from maintenance of offshore structures and piping systems.

The work on condition monitoring of static equipment includes the following activity:NII is a collective term for methods and techniques used for inspection of static process equipment from the outside without the need for costly shutdown and opening.

The philosophy behind NII is to utilise all available technical and historical informa-tion regarding the equipment in order to evaluate and determine the best inspec-tion strategy. Utilisation of new and more advanced digital inspection techniques, such as Phased Array digital ultrasonic inspection of internal wall defects and Termographic inspection of vessel to look for sludge/scale content, gives more ac-curate inspection results as well as better efficiency and coverage.

The project will perform field pilot testing of the methods and techniques on sev-eral different pressure vessels within the StatoilHydro Tampen fields.

Turbine Wash OptimizerHeavy rotating equipment such as com-pressors , turbins and pumps are a natural point of focus w.r.t. process performance optimization and maintenance. Their in-vestment cost and their critical function in process plants justifies this. When running predictive maintenance based on sensor input, the challenge is often to calculate how often non-critical, but performance enhancing maintenance, shall be conduct-ed from an economical point of view.

The ABB Optimax turbine water wash op-timizer is a performance monitoring pack-age that determines the optimal turbine washing schedule based on a production process cost analysis.The Optimax is based on a technique called Mixed Logical Dynamics (MLD) that optimizes the continuous states like effi-ciency and the discrete states (wash / no wash) of the washing cycle.

The pilot installation is in operation at Ås-gard B and evaluation is currently going on.

Condition and performance monitoring

Example on use of Non Intrusive Inspection: Termographic inspection of vessel to look for sludge/scale content

F2

StatoilHydro regularly closes down the production on its oil and gas fields, due to preventive and correc-tive maintenance activities, modi-fications of the plants, and tie-in of new fields. In 2006, turnarounds and unplanned shutdowns were the single most important cause for lost production in the Tampen area. StatoilHydro has launched several initiatives to minimize production losses due to turnarounds and re-duce the probability of unplanned shutdowns.

To support these initiatives the TAIL IO projects along with StatoilHydro EPN have launched a joint project for devel-opment of work processes, methods and solutions for improvement. The solutions will improve StatoilHydro’s ability to:

∑ Monitor the progress of ongoing turn- arounds Management and planning of turnaround projects, and assess conse- quences on turnaround performance and possible delays in production start up ∑ Prolong the intervals between turn- arounds and reduce the duration of future turnarounds without increasing losses due to unplanned shutdowns ∑ Optimize turnarounds and shutdowns across assets that are dependent on each other

The work processes, methods and solu-tions developed will consist of three main building blocks, i.e., a turnaround and shutdown knowledge analyzer, a turn-around and shutdown risk analyzer and a turnaround and shutdown optimizer.

Knowledge AnalyzerThe knowledge analyzer will provide tools for continuous monitoring of the progress of ongoing turnarounds, monitoring of shutdown preparedness, reveal possible delays and evaluate the consequences of delays on production start up.

Risk Analyzer The risk analyzer will offer tools for real time evaluation of various turnaround scenarios for a specific oil and gas field, and selection of the scenario that has the overall lowest production loss.

Optimizer The optimizer will contain tools for “on-the-fly” development of turnaround sce-narios across assets, and identify the scenario that produce the best result in minimizing production losses.

Development of the knowledge analyzer and the risk analyzer is well on its way. These solutions are the basis for the de-velopment of the optimizer. The first pro-

totypes are now ready, and the first pilots have been started. Three offshore facili-ties are currently using the prototypes for monitoring of the performance of their 2008 turnarounds. – A first prototype of a solution for simulation and optimization of turnarounds has also been developed. This will be tested on one facility and further developed during this year.

When finished, the work processes, meth-ods and tools will provide a round-the-clock monitoring of all turnarounds and report on shutdown preparednesses.

The overall objective of F2 is through use of new processes, methods and tools, to improve lower turnaround and shutdown costs. As stated by Sven Tømmerås, disci-pline adviser: “The economical potential of the project is believed to be significant. We believe it is very important that WR2091 is fully implemented throughout the entire Tampen organization, and that we have effective support and control tools that enable us to meet our regularity (PUF) and production targets.”

Methods and tools under development by StatoilHydro EPN and the Tail IO initiative – F2

Newand more efficient turnaround processes

Contact Info:Kaare Finbak, finbak@no.ibm.com Tom-Anders Thorstensen,TATHO@statoilhydro.com

Screenshot of the prototype delivered StatoilHydro EPN for monitoring of its ongoing turnarounds

F2:

F�

� Methods and tools under development by StatoilHydro EPN and the Tail IO initiative – F2

Wireless communication and sensor systems

Integrated Operations requires a con-tinuous need for more reliable and smart instrumentation. On existing offshore facilities there is little or no space available in cable trays for addi-tional cabling. Further, the cost of add-ing new hardwired instruments is very high. For green fields wireless instru-mentation cuts commissioning time and adds flexibility.

The F� project has established recommend-ed practice for wireless technology deploy-ment in the Oil and Gas industry. In 2007 extensive work was carried out in the lab in order to exploit use of wireless technology, in addition offshore pilots were successfully installed at two offshore facilities monitor-ing pressure and temperature. Despite the challenging environment signal strength and consistency during the operational period has been excellent.

Next step in 2008 will be to support comple-tion and deployment of the Wivib wireless vibration sensor. The Wivib is a new inexpen-sive flexible sensor for both permanent and temporary installations. Due to the low cost the sensor can be used to monitor equipment that normally would not be instrumented, e.g. low-voltage motors. The Wivib sensor is based on Wireless HART technology for com-munication. The first offshore installation is planned this year.

We are continuing with our investigations at StatoilHydro’s lab facility at Rotvoll. Our lab work in 2008 will focus on Wireless HART, which was released as a standard in Septem-ber 2007. The basis of our work will be a com-prehensive performance analysis of a Wire-less HART large and small-scale network.

In addition, we have started our “Intelligent Environments” project, which looks at sce-narios and technologies for the future plant of 2015 and beyond.

Testing of the Wivib sensor in the lab

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Contact Info:Paula Doyle: paula.doyle@no.abb.com Dag Sjong: dsjo@statoilhydro.com

F�:

Planning and execution of maintenance and modification projects face a series of challenges. The oil and gas installations have different age and design life. The in-stall-ations are engineered and built by different contractors using a range of modelling and design tools. Multiple un-coupled systems are used for information handling. This is cumbersome, ineffective and the probability of error is high due to a high degree of manual data handling. The use of updated 3D models makes it possible to cut planning time and avoid making inadequate work packages. This is very important in a time with lack of quali-fied personnel and high cost of sending project engineers offshore to the instal-lations Maintenance and modification projects are large contributors to facility downtime.

The F4 project addresses the mainte-nance challenges by providing the main-tenance engineers with:- Tools for collecting maintenance infor- mation from multiple systems, and pre- senting them in a common user interface (portal)- Tools for understanding the spatial lay- out of the facilities through the use of a 3D viewer which can visualize the 3D CAD model of the facilities- Tools for maintenance simulation in a 3D environment where the simulation of time and human factors are taken into account

The project goal of F4 is to increase the efficiency, safety and quality of maintenance operations of Oil and Gas facilities by utilizing �D computer models for planning, training and sup-port.

F4Contact Info:Hans Christian Von Krogh: hans-christian.von-krogh@akersolutions.com Knut Olav Fjell: kof@statoilhydro.com

TAIL IO F4 Collaborative visualisation

F4:

F5 Mobile ICT

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TAIL IO F4 Mobile ICTto support the field worker

Contact Info: Unni Ulland: unni.ulland@no.ibm.comMaria Vatshaug Ottermo: mvo@statoilhydro.com

The F5 part of the TAIL IO project has defined a vision for the future op-erations in the oil and gas industry: “Bringing the field worker’s office to the plant”. This is a strong message and a wish to make the field worker more selfcontained and efficient in his or her operations on the plant, be-ing onshore or offshore.

The vision incorporates the view for a field worker to always be connected to systems and colleagues through mobile technology. A handheld device will give the field worker the ability to receive work orders directly in his/her hand, give access to technical in-formation about the work to be performed and report performed activity back directly to systems. The amount of papers to carry in the field will be reduced and the need for running back and forth between office and activities in the plant is minimised.

Collaboration with colleagues, in various control rooms and any expert centres, is fa-cilitated by access to common systems. All parties will look at same information at the same time and may jointly perform activi-ties and draw conclusions to challenges and tasks at hand. A hand held device will en-able written dialogue between colleagues and avoid radio communication when this might not be most appropriate or another level of detail and accuracy is required.

A related and important topic to the devel-opment of a new generation PDA is the in-sight into the human aspects of the mobile worker’s daily work and mission. The project has launched an initiative to look into these aspects, and this will ensure that the hand held units designed accommodate the user requirements and that the users find the devices useful and convenient to use. The project will work with several operators to reach our goals.

Testing of Fire and Gas detectors at SnøhvitThe Fire and Gas project at Snøhvit aims at eliminating manual work and reducing interaction and dependencies between the control room and the field worker per-forming the testing of detectors. The field worker has direct access to systems and is able to perform a much more efficient and secure operation by use of technology to identify and verify that the correct detec-tor is deactivated, tested and put back on stream after the test is completed. All test results are directly logged in systems, and there is no need for additional paper work and running back to office. The hand held device that is being used is communicating directly with the Safety and Automation System (SAS), can provide location track-ing, and transmit live video and audio from the offshore plant to the control room and vice versa.

A demo of the solution was successfully tested in Bergen last summer by repre-sentatives from Snøhvit, Troll/Sleipner, Kårstø and Gullfaks. The development team received valuable feedback for the upcoming pilot that will be implemented on the Snøhvit test rack at Melkøya within first half of 2008.

Asset Tracking of containers at ÅgotnesRFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is another technology area that has ad-vanced and matured over some time, but not taken to it’s potential within the oil and gas industry. It is very much related to the challenge of agreeing on the stan-dards. The EPC (Electronic Product Code) provides a common naming convention for assets across systems and companies, but the radio frequency issues still remain a challenge, along with devices and equip-ment required to be intrinsically safe and fit for harsh and explosive environments.

The Ågotnes RFID solution will give the supply base knowledge on location and whereabouts for containers at the base, and thereby also, what has left the base. Next level of information and tracking ability is related to the content of the containers. There is a vast amount of areas of use for more efficient and reliable operations related to asset tracking in general.

For the Ågotnes solution the project has landed on a WIFI solution. RFID tags are placed at the containers and a network of RFID readers are mounted at the plant. The chosen technical solution provides a general wireless network at the plant, which opens up for additional wireless functions to be implemented.

Pilots of the Asset Tracking solution for offshore logistics will initially be tested at Ågotnes, where hundreds of contain-ers are loaded and shipped daily, and later implemented on other onshore plants. A site survey was conducted at Ågotnes in March and the pilot itself will be readily implemented within the first half of 2008.

F5:

robot activities

This year will be an exciting year bring-ing together all the threads of the TAIL IO Robotics – Future Facilities project. The goal of the project is to develop and demonstrate an advanced automation system including flexible robot manipu-lators for remote operation of future offshore platforms. Remote operation includes traditional monitoring and control of the process as well as inspection and light maintenance tasks. The robots will operate as the extended “eyes, ears & hands” of the field operators and will work in tandem with them for dangerous, diffi-cult and dirty tasks. The purpose of such a system is first and foremost to improve Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) as the operational staff will operate the installation from onshore and minimise the risk of working offshore. Only during process shut-downs, maintenance crew will be present within the process area. Transportation to offshore installations will be considerably reduced both improv-ing safety and environmental issues.

The project has two well equipped lab fa-cilities; one at ABB, Oslo, and one at Sin-tef, Trondheim. Each of the two test rigs comprises an upside-down robot mount-ed on a gantry crane operating on process equipment. The activities of these two labs are tightly coordinated and supplement each other. The extension of the lab facili-ties strengthens the project and secures that more areas are explored and tech-nical gaps closed within the TAIL IO proj-ect. The main focus areas are to build an integrated automation system including both robots and the process, interaction between the human operator and the ro-bot, and telerobotics – to be able to effec-tively operate the robotics system from a remote location. Further, collision avoid-ance and path planning for a single robot are highly prioritised. These solutions can easily be extended to multiple robots, which are planned for both labs. Finally, heavy data analysis of sensor input is prioritised to identify normal situations, variations and trends.

In the Oslo lab, the orange robot is busy and works daily. Both the robots and the pro-cess module will be integrated into the same automation system and controlled from a single interface. Monitoring and inspection of the process module as well as some light maintenance task – such as replacing a pipe section – will be carried out in addition to conventional monitoring and control of the process module.

The TAIL IO Robotics tests and demonstrates the concept of future offshore facilities and closes many of the challenging technology gaps of bringing robots offshore operated from onshore. Currently, the concept is tested in advanced lab facilities before the next step towards offshore pilots.

Contact Info:Trond Kolstad: Trond.Kolstad@akersolutions.com Anders Røyrøy: aroy@statoilhydro.com

Extensive collaborative

Lab Trondheim

Lab Oslo

F6:

1�1�robot activities

Name: Olaf Brekke Year of birth: 1972 Nationality: Norwegian Education: Royal Norwegian Navy Officer Candidate School, Royal Norwegian Naval Academy and MSc. from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) PhD student in F1 - Condition and Perfor-mance Monitoring

I have served ~16 years in the Royal Nor-wegian Navy (RNoN) where I hold the rank of Commander.I started my PhD at NTNU in September 2007 and I am focusing on limiting perfor-mance deterioration of the compressor section of gas turbines through efficient online water wash and inlet air filtration.

Name: Mogens L. Mathiesen Year of Birth: 1976 Nationality: Norwegian Education: MSc NTNU from NTNU and UC Berkeley in Ocean Engineering with a fo-cus on Marine Cybernetics PhD student in F� - industrial closed-loop control over wireless communication links

I am currently in the second year of my PhD. The first year was spent at the Uni-versity of California at Berkeley, and I am now back in London at Imperial College where I will finish off my studies. My focus is on overcoming the difficulties of wire-less communication links in the control system by utilizing a distributed control system. In that respect, I am currently working on establishing a physical model on which to test my theories to ensure that my ideas are practically feasible. When not at school I enjoy being outdoors, and since this is a bit difficult in London I spend most of my free time on the Thames rowing. I do miss the skiing in Norway though.

Name: Erlend Meland Year of birth: 1982 Nationality: Norway Education: Master of Science at NTNU, Marine Technology, Operation and mainte-nance engineering PhD student in F1 - Condition and Perfor-mance Monitoring I started as a full time PhD this year after my master degree. Working on condition and performance monitoring of offshore safety critical valves. My motivation for doing a PhD within Tail IO is the collaboration aspect of several diverse significant companies and the result oriented way of doing research. My goal is to bring theory into useful practice.

PhD’s and Post Doc’s in the TAIL Project

Name: Jørgen Spjøtvold Born: 260278 Nationality: NorwegianEducation: MSc in cybernetics at NTNUPost Doc in F1 Condition and perfor-mance monitoring

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Name: Clint Heyer Year of birth: 1981 Nationality: Australian Education: Interaction Design, University of Queensland Post Doc fellow in F�: Mobile social com-puting

I’m looking forward to taking a user-cen-tered approach to the tough problems presented by the TAIL project. Outside of work, I enjoy beach volleyball, skiing, pho-tography and music.

Name: Marcus Furuholmen Year of birth: 1974 Nationality: Norwegian Education: M.Sc. Product Design Engi-neering, NTNU PhD student in F6 - Machine Learning and Design Automation

Increased machine autonomy may be a key solution to future complex challenges in the oil and gas industry. My research is focused on learning and adaption in autonomous systems and the success-ful implementation of such in industrial environments. I am employed by Aker Solution Subsea, Systems Engineering and being hosted by the University of Oslo, Department of Informatics.

Name: Pål Johan From Year of birth: 1980 Nationality: Norwegian Education: MSc Control Engineering PhD student in F6 - Robotics Technology

I got my Master of Science degree from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in June 2006 within the field of Guidance, Navigation, Control and Ro-botics. I am a PhD candidate with the Tail OI project and are doing research in the field of robotics and its applications to the oil platforms of the future. In 2007 From spent 6 months at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, i am now a visiting researcher at UC Berkeley.

Name: Neil Stembridge Year of birth: 1979 Nationality: Irish Education: BTech Manufacturing Technol-ogy, University of Limerick, Ireland MSc Automotive Engineering, University of Leeds, UK PhD Automotive Engineering, University of Leeds, UK Post Doc fellow in F6 - Robotics for Future Facilities

Research interests: Mechatronics and control

Name: Ingeborg Krange Year of birth: 1969 Nationality: Norwegian Education: Master Degree in Sociology at the University of Oslo. Post Doc fellown in F6 - Design of com-puter-based �D models and the study of their use

I worked as a Project Manager at the Ministry of Education, and was em-ployed as Researcher at the Research and Development Department in the Norwegian telecommunications firm Tele-nor. Since 2001, I have been employed at the University of Oslo, first InterMedia and currently at the Department of Infor-matics.

Name: Anna N. Kim Year of Birth: 1973 Nationality: Canadian Education: Dr. Ing. Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Post Doc fellow in F� - Wireless sensor networks

After some country hopping and three academic degrees, I found myself sitting at ABB in Oslo and being part of the TAIL project. Pretty much perceive myself as the ana-lytical type who enjoy solving problems of practical nature yet presented on a fun-damental level. In my spare time I enjoy being behind the camera and capture the soon-gone moments in life. A good cup of coffe is essential to start the day.

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we take the challenge we develop the next generation of Oil and Gas facilities.

TAIL INTEGRATEDOPERATIONS

Condition and PerformanceMonitoring

F1

F0

Turnaroundsand ShutdownsF2

WirelessCommunicationF3

RoboticsTechnologyF6

Mobile ICTInfrastructureF5

CollaborativeVisualisationF4

Common Integration Architecture

PROJECT NEWSLETTER 02