The largest oil producer in the Caribbean used Cogent DataHub software in a recent project to modernize their SCADA systems and integrate new IoT-enabled well-monitoring devices.
Key Takeaways:
- Full integration of remote sensor data with AVEVA™ InTouch, Historian, and Web Client, using Cogent DataHub MQTT Smart Broker technology.
- Sophisticated redundancy switchovers based on MQTT quality of service.
- System-wide upgrade instead of rip-and-replace dramatically cut hardware costs and saved months of time.
A reorganization in 2018 of Petrotrin, the state oil company of Trinidad and Tobago, resulted in the formation of a new company, Heritage Petroleum Company, Ltd., to conduct exploration and production of oil and gas both onshore and offshore. It soon became clear that the SCADA system they inherited needed an upgrade, and could benefit from digitization and IoT technologies.
To develop the project, Heritage called upon a team at TOSL Automation and Technology Limited (TATL)¹, with Keone Jackman, General Manager and Aneesa Mohammed, ICE Engineer responsible for overseeing the work. They collaborated closely with two Costa Rican companies, AVEVA partner Incentro S.A. for software support, and Soati for system integration expertise.
The project consisted of two phases: 1) Upgrading the existing SCADA system (AVEVA InTouch, Historian and Web Client) and 2) Integrating remote sensor monitoring. For the first phase, the TATL team soon realized they could save significant time and resources by using existing equipment and software.
“The original plan was to rip out the entire installation and start from scratch,” said Jackman. “Fortunately, because we became involved with AVEVA and Incentro just as Heritage was finalizing plans, we suggested upgrading their SCADA system to revitalize their assets, gain visibility into production, and feed the data into the ERP system to better manage operations.”
The second phase expanded the project significantly. “Heritage was also talking about bringing in electrical substations, compression monitoring, and remote sensors using MQTT,” continued Jackman. “There was a clear need for an MQTT Broker, and that’s where Skkynet got involved through Incentro, as a trusted partner whose DataHub software supports MQTT and works well with the AVEVA suite.”
In tests, the DataHub Smart MQTT Broker proved to be compatible with both AVEVA InTouch and HiberHilo equipment, whose LoRaWAN networking uses the MQTT protocol. Typically, a LoRaWAN-enabled sensor is connected by MQTT to the cloud, and from there to corporate offices. But Heritage wanted a way to feed the incoming MQTT data from HiberHilo devices directly into their SCADA system, as well as broker it to other systems in the future.
¹ Formerly ANSA Technologies Limited (ATL) at the time of the Project
The Heritage team installed HiberHilo sensors throughout their offshore production facilities where monitoring was required, and sent the data stream from each sensor to a LoRaWAN network server. That server was connected to a DataHub instance as an MQTT client by the TATL team. They then used the DataHub MQTT Smart Broker to collect and integrate the MQTT data streams and send the results by OPC to AVEVA InTouch, Historian, and Web Client, supplementing the rest of the process data.
With the basic data flow established, the team next had to consider interface design and protocol conversion. “This project was unique,” said Mohammed. “It wasn’t just plug and play. We had to pick out the specific data points that we wanted to display in InTouch, then create tags in InTouch and build the screens from scratch. And the data coming in from the gateways was in different JSON formats for several different types of sensors and devices. The DataHub software had to take this information, process it, and send it to InTouch in a way that would make sense. The Skkynet support team helped us build out custom scripts for JSON conversions.”
In addition to handling the various JSON inputs, the system had to be redundant. The project was well underway when the TATL team came upon an unforeseen problem. The HiberHilo servers could not support a parallel connection scenario that they had envisioned.
“We had to change the configuration,” said Jackman. “With the help of Soati, Incentro, and Skkynet we came up with a way to monitor a quality-of-service parameter from the data flow of each of the two MQTT servers. A DataHub script assesses the quality of both data paths and switches which InTouch system it goes to, as needed. This ensures that whenever the server misses a signal from one of the detectors, the path of the MQTT servers gets switched, to preserve the data connectivity.”
“Those are two real-world scenarios that we had to deal with,” Jackman continued. “Fortunately, the flexibility and versatility of the DataHub solution gave us room to maneuver around the problem.”
“So far what we implemented has been successful,” said Mohammed. “Heritage was looking for modernized dashboards, increased availability, user friendliness, stability, and security. The MQTT connections improved analytics, alarm management, integration with third party applications, and the ability to scale and add more devices. All of this was achieved by using DataHub software.”
Many of these cost benefits came from keeping existing hardware and software wherever possible. “The savings were significant because we were able to reuse what Heritage already had,” said Jackman. “They did not need to immediately rip out their communication infrastructure, for example. That alone easily saved them six months.”
To assist Heritage with the ongoing project maintenance and development, Skkynet provided a series of knowledge transfer training sessions for their IT department. These sessions focused on the DataHub scripts, and how to add new devices. “The Skkynet support team was always available for meetings, producing scripts and making changes to them,” said Mohammed. “The turnaround time to produce changes was within one day, or two to three days maximum. There were also times where we needed them for troubleshooting with Soati and they were always available. This project would not have been a success without them.”
Heritage has plans for further expansion for their onshore business units, to integrate additional sensors and screens in InTouch for monitoring. The team at TATL is standing by, ready to assist with additional DataHub installations and scripts, as needed.
