Largest Offshore Oil Operation in Argentina Improves Production

ENAP Argentina has operations in the Austral Basin and the San Jorge Gulf Basin. The Magallanes area has five oil and gas production platforms. It is the largest offshore operation in Argentina. ENAP has an integrated business model based on a strategic management process and projects, whose ultimate goal is to increase the value of the company with safety and responsibility, contributing to the integration and energy supply of Argentina and Chile.

There are five Ignition servers installed on five offshore oil platforms with a Hub & Spoke configuration. All of them send information to servers on land at Magallanes, Argentina. On the ground, there is a virtualized Ignition server installed in a cluster of three servers. This server contains the "supervision" application that allows navigation between all applications, from any location in the corporate network. This includes the Magallanes Reception Battery (BRM) and the platforms.

Problem:
There are five oil platforms that must report information from the different measurement points to a server on the ground and retransmit them to a remote server. Due to bad weather, there are periods in which the communication of the ground platforms with the receiving battery is interrupted, and data is lost. All control points are isolated, and the supervisory staff has difficulty reviewing the information. The management staff was totally isolated in obtaining information.

Solution:
The solution was integrated by parts. In the first instance, the control system of all the platforms was changed to Ignition. Each of the Ignition servers was configured with the Hub & Spoke Architecture, to guarantee the sending of information to a server on the ground. Each server has its own database, and through the use of "transaction groups," the information is sent.

On the ground, a cluster of three servers was installed. These host a virtualized Ignition server. This server has two projects, one for the control of the reception battery and another application that allows the supervisors and the management personnel of the company to navigate through all the applications at sea and on land as their user level allows. This configuration allows personnel in Buenos Aires to access information in Rio Gallegos.

The Ignition Server has double redundancy so the SCADA system will not be out of service when a server is being maintained.

Result:
The client obtained a SCADA system with these advantages:

• High availability
• Access to information from corporate offices, in real time
• Ability to publish according to the requirements demanded by the Secretariat of Energy
• Monitoring and control of the five platforms and BRM
• Ability to generate reports for information analytics required by the different areas of the company
• Access to asset management data
• Event auditing to register all accesses and modifications to the SCADA system
• No need to change the user to move between applications