Gas leak detection missed by PI
Automated alerting to an operations team that were unaware of a small loss of primary containment
Gas leak detection missed by PI
Automated alerting to an operations team that were unaware of a small loss of primary containment
Overview
Ingenuity’s subscription-based alerts systems triggered an operations team to investigate a fault on a gas detector that a polling approach by PI had missed.
482
Number of gas detectors on one of our client’s offshore facilities, each producing data every minute.
Problem: Manual trend analysis on almost 500 gas detectors
Loss of primary containment is one of the highest risks faced by an offshore facility and whilst large leaks are quickly detected and addressed, smaller leaks may escape detection and intervention.
A typical offshore facility may have several hundred gas detectors, with most connected up to control systems that record activity. Every leak must be reported to the regulator, however minor.
Our client was using PI to track the history of gas leaks manually across hundreds of detectors, poring over spreadsheets to infer trends and spot anomalies.
Solution: Enabling conscious competence
Just a few weeks after installation, Ingenuity issued an alert to the operational team that gas was leaking in a part of the facility. Ingenuity’s sunburst visualization clearly showed the event, its time, duration and the peak it had hit.
The team checked PI which showed no such event.
On checking the physical control system to see the raw data however, the team saw that there had been a small and short loss of primary containment. After securing the area, the team investigated why PI had not picked up the gas leak.
It concluded that the gas leak had lasted less than sixty seconds and PI had missed the leak Ingenuity had picked up.
But how many others had been missed?
Impact: Restoring control, automating alerts and trend analysis
The operations team made adjustments to PI to avoid similar incidents but what this had highlighted was a risk associated with polling safety critical data every minute or so, rather than using a subscriptions-based approach like Ingenuity, that triggers an alert when a threshold is reached.
Ingenuity helped the client move to more proactive safety management, supported by its comprehensive automated trend-building and alerts. These sunburst plots give the client immediate visualisation of how all ~500 gas detectors are operating and where, if any, closer inspection is required.
This case study also demonstrates the benefit of taking raw data direct from the equipment’s control system not via another data store like PI or a data lake, both of which would have ‘lost’ the crucial gas leak data, perhaps masking an emerging problem for the facility.
Case Studies
Easy to read case studies, which dive into how and why our solutions are so effective.
Book a demo
Like to find out more? Book a time below to talk to one of our engineers.
Clients
Over the past fifteen years, we have worked with many of the major oil and gas operators. We are trusted as engineering experts who deploy digital technologies to create value.
“I especially appreciate Eigen’s willingness to find solutions. They are always dedicated to providing cost-effective solutions for their customers.”
Espen ErichsenVar Energi Norway 
"By digitizing the production surveillance processes, we have eliminated a lot of time spent with spreadsheets and integrated data from various operational data sources. Now our engineers have more time to focus on optimizing production.
With this cloud-based platform our engineers can continue to work remotely, and it makes it easy to keep everyone in the company informed."
Peter DabrowskiDigital Transformation – subsurface lead at Wintershall Dea With this cloud-based platform our engineers can continue to work remotely, and it makes it easy to keep everyone in the company informed."
"What makes Eigen standout is the thought to the end-user experience; they care about the solutions they create and how they can be implemented sustainably to add value to the business."
Lewis VincentBP - Regional Readiness Lead – Mauritania & Senegal 
"We are proud to have developed and launched this portal in collaboration with Eigen. Its users will now have much easier access to the correct information and an enhanced ability to access it, alongside a reduction in inbox clutter. The portal will go a long way towards making platform operatives more efficient and helping them to spend less time looking for information. In the near future we plan to add further digital functionality enhancements to the platform."
Martin WestengLundin’s Project Lead 
"The Panel gives real-time visibility of barrier status and hence provides a step change in Eni Norge’s ability to understand, prioritise and act on major accident risk."
Live FornesEni’s HSE Project Manager 
