GASSCO Pipeline Management System

ATMOS International

ATMOS International is a highly successful worldwide engineering software and service supplier to pipeline companies in the oil, gas, aviation, water and chemical industries. With over 400 installations since 1995, the advanced pipeline application software includes statistical pipeline leak detection, hydraulic simulation, pig tracking, batch tracking, optimization, tank farm management and gas management systems.

GASSCO

Gassco (www.gassco.no) operate the integrated gas transport system from the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) to continental Europe and the UK. This integrated network comprises 7975km subsea pipelines, processing plants, platforms and receiving terminals in four countries.

PIPELINE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM OVERVIEW

The Gassco Pipeline Management System developed by ATMOS uses ATMOS SIM for advanced hydraulic modelling in order to simulate pipelines and provide flow, pressure and temperature profiles, inventory calculation, composition tracking, quality tracking and look-ahead modeling functions. These calculations are used to predict pipeline response to production disruptions. As no subsea measurements are available on the Gassco pipeline network the pipeline simulation functions are essential for Gassco to operate these pipelines safely and cost effectively.

The results of ATMOS SIM for 19 separate Gassco pipeline models are displayed alongside measurement data within the ABB SCADA system for operator interrogation.  ATMOS has developed custom user tools embedded in the ABB SCADA to allow control of the functionalities of the PMS and the trending of PMS results and pipeline measurements for comparison.

PIPELINE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM COMPONENTS

ATMOS SIM: SIM Offline supports planning and design analysis of pipeline networks. SIM Online gives pipeline operators a view into the un-instrumented areas of the pipeline to assist them in running their pipelines. The same configuration applies to ATMOS SIM Offline and Online. Online saved states can be imported to SIM offline for realistic scenario analysis and emergency studies.

ATMOS SIM Look Ahead (LAH) Functionality: models the behaviour of the pipeline/network based on current operations or defined changes imposed on the system. Scenarios, such as frozen signals and custom production plans, can be pre-configured and scheduled to run automatically. LAH was also integrated with Gassco's gas nomination system to automatically generate scenarios that simulate the impact to pipeline hydraulics for various production plans.

Peak Tracking: Using ATMOS SIM gas composition tracking functionality a peak tracking module was developed for Gassco to allow the automatic and manual tracking of batches, or 'peaks', of off-specification gas, trace components, methanol, etc. The ATMOS SIM pipeline model is tuned to give accurate prediction of peak locations and estimated times of arrival to points of interest.

ATMOS Data Manager: connects all pipeline application and control systems e.g. SCADA/DCS via OPC. It gathers real-time and simulated data at configurable intervals. It can work alone or in a redundant environment. On failure of the primary server ATMOS Data Manager automatically and seamlessly switches to the secondary server.

ATMOS Trend: is the most flexible and comprehensive data charting and trending tool in the market. It has the following key features:

• Trending of millions of points in seconds
• Ability to be embedded in third party SCADA systems and applications
• User friendly scroll functions using the profile animation tool
• Trending of measurements against calculations
• Trending of historical against predictive data
• Seamless switching between primary and secondary data sources
• Optional time settings for different applications
• Selection of the display units and axis
• Time and distance based profiling
• Easy to zoom in and out.

Gassco Custom User Controls: ATMOS developed dedicated user controls which are embedded in the ABB SCADA Graphical User Interface. The custom user controls give Gassco the ability to control the simulation models (including Look Ahead and Peak Tracking configuration) and Trend the PMS results directly from within the ABB SCADA system.

Go Live Milestone

On 8th June 2011 Gassco launched their new Pipeline Management System in the operations environment. The successful launch is the result of close collaboration between Gassco and ATMOS International.

Gassco Project Manager Svend-Aage Dan Nielsen said, "This project has been challenging in further developing and implementing the ATMOS Pipeline Management System to support our subsea pipeline network. Along with configuring and tuning all pipelines, specific networks have also been built to support forecast scenarios across several pipelines. The model accuracy is above expectation taking into account that there is very little instrumentation to feed the SIM models with signals. ATMOS has worked hard and focused, and with their commitment and field knowledge, ATMOS managed to develop our next generation of Pipeline Management System, which is fully integrated with the DCS/SCADA system. Since we went live, the system has been working reliably and the Gassco Operators are very pleased with the new functionalities".