Control System World

The Emerson Global Users Exchange will be held from 8th to 12th October at the Hilton Anaheim and Anaheim Convention Center in sunny Anaheim, California.

The Emerson Global Users Exchange Conference was developed to provide end users with a valuable exchange of information among process manufacturers, end-users and Emerson experts. The unique opportunity offers peers the ability to network, view and offer input about developing Emerson technologies and to take away new knowledge, ideas and techniques to help maximize assets and increase profitability.

The Conference includes:

• Workshop and Short Course Presentations
• Hands on Educational Services Courses
• Industry Forums
• Technology Forums
• Meet the Experts Sessions
• Product Roadmaps
• Exhibits
• Special Interest Group Meetings
• Social and Networking Event
• Fully functioning Demo's

The Emerson Global Users Exchange is more than an industry-leading technical conference, it is a community of manufacturing leaders committed to extracting the most from their automation investment…and sharing their learning with each other.

Who should attend?

• Control Systems Manager, Engineer, Specialist
• Instrumentation Supervisor, Engineer, Technician
• Maintenance Manager
• Plant Management, VP Manufacturing
• Production Operator, Supervisor
• Project Director, Manager
• Reliability Manager or Engineer
• VP or Director of Engineering or Operations
• EPCs and OEMs

Click for Registration

Click to see the Agenda At a Glance

Click to see the Exchange Website

Preparations for the 4th Annual World Refining Technology Summit 2012 are on target. The WRTS 2012 is scheduled on 22-23 October 2012 in Bedford Hotel & Congress Centre Brussels Belgium in association with European Petroleum Industry Association (EUROPIA), European Fuel Oxygenates Association (EFOA) and United Kingdom Petroleum Industry Association (UKPIA), and is one of the best platform that unites the entire refining / petrochemical industry, downstream companies and is one of the most prestigious international forum which is being held at the highest level.

If you are a part of OIL & GAS / PETROLEUM / REFINING / REFINERY OPERATORS you can avail a free / complimentary pass to attend the summit. To register and reserve your complimentary seat, you are just one click away.

For further information please click '4th Annual World Refining Technology Summit 2012'

Submit your details here REGISTER ME

If you provide Solution / Technology / Consultation to Oil & Gas, Petroleum, Refining companies CLICK HERE

Brooks Instrument continues to innovate its mass flow control solutions with the integration of the EtherCAT communication protocol with its GF40 and GF80 Series thermal mass flow controllers. EtherCAT, which has been adopted by leading-edge technology companies, makes it easier to network instrumentation for advanced process control and diagnostics capabilities.

EtherCAT (Ethernet for Control Automation Technology) is an open, high-performance ethernet-based fieldbus system designed for process control applications requiring short data update times with low communication “jitter.”

Other key benefits of EtherCAT include:

• High-speed, time-synchronized communication to optimize process control;

• Low implementation costs compared to other communication networks — no special master cards and cables required;

• More flexible topology supporting up to 65,535 nodes per segment for large scale installations; and

• Ease of use with auto configuration and location-specific diagnosis.

For more information about Brooks Instrument’s GF40 and GF80 Series with EtherCAT technology, visit http://www.brooksinstrument.com/documentation-a-downloads/viewcategory/42-data-sheets.html.

Reuters: Oman Oil Company , the energy investment arm of the Oman government, will invest around US$800mn to build a petrochemicals plant in Sohar that will produce purified terephthalic acid (PTA) and polyethylene terephtalate (PET), according to the chairman of the company.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of an agreement signing ceremony between Oman Oil and Vale on Monday at the Crowne Plaza Muscat, H E Nasser bin Khamis al Jashmi, chairman of Oman Oil and the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Oil and Gas, said that the capacity of new PTA-PET plant in Sohar will be about 1mn tonnes per year.

He said, "We are establishing a company to set up this petrochemical project in Sohar which will produce PTA-PET. The investment in this project will be about US$800mn."

The worldwide Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) market reflects the impact of new technology on SCADA components and cost- effective communications for both data and knowledge transfer. Today’s SCADA systems offer a new generation of technology components that are easier to integrate and provide improved capabilities and functionalities. After weathering the effects of the 2008-2009 global recession, the market has rebounded strongly, growing at high single- and low double-digit rates. As demand for oil recovers and funding is freed up, project activity can be expected to return to robust levels in coming years, according to a new ARC Advisory Group study.

A number of significant factors are driving the worldwide SCADA market in the oil and gas industry. These include the continuing worldwide demand for additional energy from carbon-based fuels, the shifting of exploration and production locations to more remote and hostile environments, and end user requirements to link SCADA to information technology and business systems. Operating companies are placing an increasing emphasis on vendor services over the entire value chain and asset lifecycle and are looking for additional functionalities in application software. “SCADA systems, together with advanced applications, improve visibility and the performance of geographically dispersed assets, and form the basis for real-time performance management of production and pipeline assets,” according to Senior Analyst Allen Avery, the principal author of ARC’s “SCADA Systems for the Oil & Gas Industry Worldwide Outlook”.

The Expanding Role of SCADA in the Enterprise

SCADA suppliers are offering more flexible hardware with added intelligence and emphasizing total solutions by coupling their hardware and software with service packages. Traditional SCADA suppliers are introducing new and innovative product features and helping clients develop migration planning programs. Suppliers are also offering a wider range of web-enabled advanced applications and packaged solutions, particularly for users seeking to integrate SCADA with business and enterprise level applications and supply chains. Beyond its traditional role of data gathering and control, the value of SCADA systems is being enhanced with the addition of applications that enable business intelligence, giving users better insight into the economics of their operations, the ability to better validate nominations and pipeline allocations, and tools to track carbon emissions to help comply with environmental regulations.

Emerging Markets Driving Growth

North America is the largest single market, accounting for slightly under a half of all shipments, and showed strong growth between 2010 and 2011, as pipeline activity continued to move at a brisk pace, and pipeline operators sought to update their systems to take full advantage of the functionalities of modern SCADA systems. EMEA, the second largest segment, saw more modest growth during the same period, due to a drop in activity in Western Europe. The market focus continues to shift to the developing regions of the world, where numerous major Greenfield energy projects are occurring at a pace that exceeds that of the developed regions. Asia, led by China, posted strong growth in project activity during 2010, and will continue to drive growth going forward.

For more information on this study, please visit our Market Research section from ARC.

Kepware Technologies, the leader in advanced automation for communications, announced today that it is teaming with ZPI, Inc. to drive industrial automation and improve the quality of business data delivered to the company's manufacturing customers. By leveraging Kepware as their OPC server provider, ZPI is meeting increased demand for reliable, operation-related metrics and achieving lean six sigma and continuous improvement initiatives. To learn the full details, download the ZPI case study at http://www.kepware.com/casestudy/kepware-and-zpi-quest-data-perfection/.

Based in Ontario, Canada, ZPI provides enterprise manufacturing diagnostics software to help customers accelerate production while improving top-line performance and reducing waste. "With the economy struggling, manufacturers must focus on total quality management and six sigma initiatives," said Paul Mancini, Vice President of Marketing and Innovation at ZPI. "The truth is, it's just not possible without the right diagnostic tools in place. This places a premium on highly accurate, real-time, business-critical data."

ZPI frequently found that their manufacturing customers were leveraging a competitive industrial automation and control system that dropped connections and produced inaccurate data reads. These issues stemmed from poor network design and occurred when new data overtaxed the overall network configuration. As the flawed data reports continued to impact the manufacturing improvement processes, ZPI turned to Kepware and their award-winning KEPServerEX® offering.

KEPServerEX is specifically engineered to connect a wide variety of industrial automation devices and applications, from plant control systems to enterprise information systems. The flexible and scalable software can efficiently manage, monitor, and control diverse automation devices and software applications. Kepware also provides a highly effective interface, offering plant-level data, bottleneck analysis, and immediate problem identification.

In typical installations, ZPI creates a Kepware channel for each individual production asset, thus providing insulation from communications failures that may occur in other channels. When combined with the auto-demotion functionality, this feature results in near-perfect data.

"Right away, we noticed improvements in the quality and usability of data we were receiving. Because Kepware provides a rich suite of drivers, you can connect to almost any device at any time. This lessens support requirements, lowers total project costs, and ultimately improves reliability of performance metrics," noted Mancini.

KBR (NYSE: KBR) has announced today that it was awarded a contract by Statoil Tanzania AS (Statoil) to perform pre-front end engineering and design (pre-FEED) studies for a prospective liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Tanzania, East Africa.

The pre-FEED study is designed to help Statoil further assess the viability of developing an LNG facility to export natural gas from this East African region. The project is expected to be completed during 2013.

“We are excited to be selected by Statoil for this important project,” said Mitch Dauzat, president, Gas Monetization. “KBR looks forward to working together with Statoil to define their LNG concept for Tanzania.”

KBR has been working with Statoil for more than 30 years and has an outstanding record for successful project execution, predominantly for Statoil’s Gas Processing plants.

KBR (NYSE: KBR) announced today that it was awarded a License and Process Design Package contract for a new Olefins Recovery Unit in Yulin city, Shanxi Province, China.

The client owns an existing commercial plant of coal-to-olefins which was put into production in 2011 and is the first and largest coal-to-olefin project in the world using coal as the feedstock to produce polyethylene and polypropylene by coal gasification to methanol, then methanol to olefin (MTO), and then olefin polymerization. MTO opens up a new approach to the implementation of the energy substitution strategy and the founding of coal to the olefin industry.

This is the second MTO plant for the client with the capacity of 600 KTA of olefins (ethylene plus propylene). It is planned to be put into production in 2014.

“KBR has over 60 years experience of olefins producing and olefins recovery and we are pleased to continue the success with this new methanol to olefins project,” said John Derbyshire, president, KBR Technology. “This project will enable us to expand upon our past experience with our ACO™ and SUPERFLEX™ technology, which have the same Fluidized Catalytic Cracking process as MTO.”