Control System World

Paris, July 9, 2012 - Total announces, together with its partners Repsol, Inepetrol and Otepi, having taken the final investment decision for a new development phase of the Yucal Placer gas field, operated by Ypergas*, and located in Guárico State, Venezuela.

The production capacity of this field, which came on stream in 2004, will be increased as soon as in 2012 and will ultimately reach a plateau at around 300 million cubic feet per day, which corresponds to three times the current production.

The sanction of this major expansion project follows the signature of an addendum to the gas sales and purchase agreement between Ypergas and PDVSA Gas. The project will significantly increase the gas resources available to supply the domestic Venezuelan market which is experiencing strong growth.

Yucal Placer’s gas characteristics - high-CO2 content, high-temperature - require specific technological expertise in sour gas and high-temperature deposits, which Total has developed and consolidated.

The project is Chevron’s first operated development in the West of Shetland basin.

Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) announced that its U.K. subsidiary has entered front-end engineering and design (FEED) on the Rosebank oil and gas project in the West of Shetland region. "The Rosebank project is another important step forward in our strategy to grow profitably in core areas of our upstream business," said George Kirkland, Chevron's vice chairman. "Chevron has extensive deepwater capabilities, and the Rosebank project fits well in our portfolio."

The Chevron-operated Rosebank project is located approximately 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of the Shetland Islands, in water depths of approximately 3,700 feet (1,100 meters). The project will include a floating production, storage and offloading vessel, production and water injection wells, subsea facilities, and a gas export pipeline.

The Rosebank Field, discovered in 2004, is estimated to contain total potentially recoverable oil-equivalent resources of 240 million barrels. The Rosebank development is a joint venture between Chevron's subsidiary Chevron North Sea Limited with a 40 percent equity interest; Statoil (U.K.) Limited (30 percent); OMV (U.K.) Limited (20 percent) and DONG Exploration & Production (UK) Limited (10 percent).

JULY 09, 2012/HOUSTON, TEXAS - Invensys Operations Management, a global provider of technology systems, software solutions and consulting services to the manufacturing and infrastructure operations industries, today announced that it will host a series of global user events in its key regions, beginning in North America. The series will include individual meetings designed specifically for users of products and solutions from each of the company’s major brands: Avantis, Foxboro, SimSci-Esscor, Triconex and Wonderware. The technical conferences offer an opportunity for engineers and operators to discuss the technology, solutions and best practices that can help them optimize their existing assets while clearing a cost-effective path to modernizing their operations.

The North America events kick off with a Foxboro User Group meeting, being held at the Marriott Copley Place in Boston, Mass., August 13 through August 17. A Wonderware and an Avantis meeting will be held October 10 and 11 at the Anaheim Marriott in Anaheim, Calif. An event for users of the company’s Triconex products and solutions will be held October 21 through October 23 at the San Luis Hotel in Galveston, Texas. Additional meetings for users of the company’s SimSci-Esscor and Wonderware IntelaTrac products will be held later this year In Houston, Texas. The venue and dates for those events will be announced in the coming weeks.

The Foxboro User Group meeting will include presentations, hands-on training and demonstrations covering topics such as upgrade planning, lifecycle management and new features. The event will also feature several panel sessions led by customers, with a focus on specific vertical industries (chemicals; food and beverage; hydrocarbon processing; mining, metals and minerals; pharmaceuticals; power; upstream oil and gas; and water and wastewater), as well as sessions on cyber security, virtualization, intelligent marshalling, Foxboro 100 Series upgrade and several others. More than 40 different sessions will cover virtually every aspect of enterprise control, from industry and business solutions to instrumentation and process control and safety.

24/7 Access to Remote Systems from Your iPhone, iPad or Android. CAS DataLoggers has announced news for dataTaker users: a convenient 3rd-party application called DT-Remote now allows iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Android OS-based device users to view their real-time data collected from remote dataTaker systems. With no Flash requirements needed, DT-Remote is the missing link between your dataTaker datalogger and any of these mobile devices. With constant, real-time access, you can keep an eye on your important data. Currently, the bestselling dataTaker DT8x series 2 and 3 data loggers with firmware versions 8.02 and above are all included in DT-Remote.

DT-Remote allows you to incorporate multiple dataTaker-based systems into your application and choose how you view your data, whether through graphs, lists, and mimic panels (analog or digital measuring instruments such as thermometers and dials). The broad selection of available mimics for just about any type of data includes dial meters, thermometers, and compass faces to display your critical information in easy-to-read panels.

BP and JBF Petrochemicals (a wholly owned subsidiary of JBF Industries Ltd.) have signed an agreement for licensing BP’s latest generation purified terephthalic acid (PTA) technology. JBF intends to build a 1.25 million tonnes per annum (tpa) unit at the Special Economic Zone in Mangalore, India, to produce PTA, the primary feedstock for polyesters used in textiles and packaging. JBF expects the Mangalore plant to come on stream at the end of 2014.

“This first third party, non-affiliate, licence recognises the quality of BP’s technology and builds on the excellent relationship between our companies. JBF is a world-class polyester producer and I’m proud that they’ve chosen BP’s leading technology,” said Nick Elmslie, chief executive of BP’s Global Petrochemicals Business.

“Our PTA technology has significantly lower capital and operating costs compared with conventional PTA plants and is more energy efficient, uses less water, and produces less solid waste than its competitors. We have invested significantly in our proprietary technology and there are two routes to monetize this; one is through investment and one is through licensing. We have decided that the maximum value to BP will come both from investing in projects such as our Zhuhai 3 project in Guangdong, China and through licensing.”

KBR has announced it has been awarded a contract for engineering and procurement services for DuPont’s first cellulosic ethanol plant in Nevada, Iowa. KBR will provide front-end engineering, detailed engineering and procurement services to DuPont's Industrial Biosciences Group for this first-of-a-kind plant to be constructed in the Midwest United States. The ethanol facility is designed to process 1,300 tons per day of corn stover and produce 27.5 million gallons of ethanol per year. The cellulosic ethanol product will be used as a blending component in gasoline by fuel manufacturers and will enable them to meet U.S. EPA-mandated requirements for ethanol derived from cellulosic sources.

KBR is executing the project from its Wilmington, Del. Operations Center, a bio fuels center of excellence. Ground breaking is scheduled for the second half of 2012 with a 12-18 month construction period. "KBR and DuPont have a long-standing partnership and a history of successful project execution," said David Zelinski, President, Downstream. "This award further affirms and solidifies KBR’s 20-plus year partnership with DuPont in the safe and efficient development and execution of capital projects, and reinforces KBR's position as an EPC leader in bio fuels projects."

Baden, Switzerland: ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, has won two orders for electrification and automation equipment to help Swedish iron ore producer Northland Resources operate its new concentrator plant at the highest levels of energy efficiency. Both contracts were received in March 2012.

The newly established Kaunisvaara project is located approximately 100 km north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden, near the Finnish border. When in full production, it will produce five million tons of high grade iron ore per year in the concentrator plant, for use in iron and steelmaking.

ABB will supply a range of electrification and automation solutions for the concentrator plant and the excavation operations in the open pit mine that feeds it. The first order was awarded directly from Northland Resources and includes prefabricated containerized electrical rooms, plant wide fiber optic network infrastructure and associated civil works for the Tapuli iron ore deposit. The second order was placed by Metso and comprises the complete electrical and control package for the concentrator plant.

ABB’s electrification and automation solutions will allow Northland Resources to achieve optimal operational conditions to reach the highest production at the lowest energy costs. The scope of supply includes nine containerized electrical rooms with embedded medium- and low-voltage switchgear, variable-speed drives and motor control centers, integrated with a plant-wide process automation system using ABB’s Extended Automation System 800xA. ABB’s delivery also includes fiber optic network equipment cabling, cable trenching, installation material, engineering, commissioning, installation supervision and project management services.

Brooks Instrument will unveil its new XacTorr CMX0 capacitance manometer, as well as the new EtherCAT capabilities of its GF40/80 mass flow controller at Intersolar North America, July 10-12 in San Francisco. Brooks will showcase these and other mass flow, pressure and vacuum products for the solar and semiconductor industries at Booth 5648.

The Brooks XacTorr CMX family of capacitance manometers provides solar and semiconductor manufacturers with highly stable and repeatable measurements for pressure sensitive processes. The product offers full-scale ranges from 1,000 Torr to 100 mTorr, as well as 0.15% of reading accuracy. With its patented Mark IV sensor the Brooks XacTorr lasts up to three times as long in aggressive processes compared to other capacitance manometers. The rapid recovery feature allows the sensor to recover from large changes in pressure faster than other vacuum gauges on the market, significantly decreasing downtime.