Refinery project relies on Brüel & Kjær Vibro
26/11/2024
A Southeast Asian refinery, currently being upgraded and expanded under the Clean Fuel Project (CFP), will soon be completed. The SETPOINT Solution from Brüel & Kjær Vibro (B&K Vibro) was selected to monitor the critical and balance-of-plant machines and the last deliveries have occurred. Commissioning of the monitoring system will begin soon.
This project has special significance since all condition monitoring will be carried out in the enterprise historian. Moreover, through the combined efforts of B&K Vibro and the service provider, integrated comprehensive monitoring solutions are provided that include thermal performance monitoring.
The refinery started production in 1964, with an initial refining capacity of 35,000 barrels per day (BDP). It is currently producing 275,000 BPD but this will be increased to 400,000 BPD after installing new processing units as well as improving and expanding existing facilities in the refinery.
The CFP involves installing, replacing or upgrading older units and installing new units in the separation, conversion/reforming and treatment processes. From a clean fuel point of view, attention will be given to refining high-quality and clean light fuels such as gasoline, kerosene and diesel fuel. Production complies with the Euro 5 standard for diesel and petrol. The added refining processes will increase the Nelson complexity index by more than 22%. The Energy Recovery Unit (ERU), a part of the CFP, will deliver 250 MW of power plus 175 tons/hour of steam to the refinery. Petroleum pitch produced in the refinery will be used as fuel for the ERU.
Almost 300 machines will be monitored for protection and more than 90 for condition monitoring by SETPOINT. Most of these are pumps and fans, but there are also centrifugal and reciprocating compressors that will be monitored. From a hardware integrity point of view, more than 90 machines will be monitored to a SIL 2 certification. For the machines that receive condition monitoring by SETPOINT, performance monitoring by the service provider will also be included. This includes several steam turbine generators that have factory-installed protection systems from another monitoring system supplier.
SETPOINT provides specialised tools for vibration diagnostics, but otherwise all condition monitoring visualisation, alarming and notification will be conducted through the AVEVA PI historian. Performance monitoring is also carried out in the PI system, but diagnostic plots are provided by the service provider from their server. No proprietary database or condition monitoring servers are needed in this installation since everything is done on the PI servers. Moreover, much more transparency is said to be provided this way compared to what is offered by proprietary systems.
Just as importantly, the entire system meets the very strict cybersecurity requirements. Data is exported to the distributed control system (DCS) via redundant Modbus, and process values, which are used for correlation with vibration data and for calculating performance parameters, are imported via Open Platform Communications (OPC) from the DCS.
The monitoring system portion of the CFP was started in 2018 and the FAT was successfully performed remotely due to the pandemic.
The monitoring system commissioning is only now beginning to get underway. Full operation of the refinery is expected later in 2024. Discussions are also underway on a service contract.
As a large part of B&K Vibro’s market is based on renewables and cleaner energy, this particular project was a significant one for the company, which had a role as the primary plant-wide monitoring solution provider for a refinery project focused on clean fuels and more efficient production.
The PI-based condition monitoring and diagnostics strategy allows much more data to be available for correlation and diagnostics, resulting in increased reliability and accuracy for making predictive maintenance decisions.
