The addition of microprocessor technology to all but the simplest industrial measurement sensors and controls has changed the whole industry.

No longer is there a divide between the sensors and transmitters on the plant, and the computer-based control room with its screens and operators. The sensors themselves, and the control valves, have the intelligence to provide the control function, and report back the current status to the control room operators. Still the operators can decide the overall production targets, and set the target flow rates and control norms for the field instruments, but the field instruments do the work, the intelligence is distributed around the plant.
Nowhere has this change been felt more than in the manufacturers of the sensors and transmitters themselves. One of the leaders in implementing such change has been Emerson Process Management, probably more recognised throughout the Gulf area by the brand names on the valves and transmitters manufactured in their many factories throughout the world: names like Rosemount pressure and temperature transmitters, Fisher valves and valve controllers, Micro Motion mass flowmeters, Daniel gas and liquid flowmeters, Rosemount Analytical gas and liquid monitoring sensors, Saab tank gauging and Mobrey level controls. These products all now contain microprocessor-based intelligence, and use digital communications to transmit data and control signals around the plant, using the well-known fieldbus techniques.
Emerson Process Management has pioneered the use of fieldbus digital communications, using its PlantWeb digital plant architecture, which takes advantage of the spread of plant intelligence across all the field devices. PlantWeb is the leading digital automation architecture available for use by process plants today, capturing and harnessing field intelligence. Still there are control rooms, and these typically use the Emerson DeltaV digital automation systems. With the plant control carried out in the field, the activities in the control room can be devoted to optimisation and analysis of the plant and process performance: so the typical developments in this area cover the AMS Suite of software services, dealing with asset management and RTO (real time production optimisation) services.
Using this Emerson technology, partnering agreements have been developed with oil field production and plant operators around the world, to assist the business activities of the petroleum industry in particular - from engineering and design to sustaining services that improve performance and increase uptime at operating facilities. Currently Emerson Process Management is seen more often as the main automation contractor on a project, providing all the instrumentation, control and automation services, using the complete set of compatible equipment and controls now available within the different branded products available from Emerson companies.
This can be illustrated by some new projects announced relating to the rapidly growing LNG industry, and to some completed projects in the Gulf area. Emerson has always had great strength and involvement with oil and gas fiscal metering systems, primarily with the Daniel products using turbine oil metering and ultrasonic gas flow measurement technology, and the Micro Motion Coriolis mass flow measurement systems. One example was the $17 million project placed by Hyundai Engineering and Construction with the Emerson Daniel oil measurement division to design, integrate and test the complete custody transfer measurement and operations system for Kuwait National Petroleum, for their “New Oil Pier” terminal.
More recently, following the API acceptance of the Coriolis technology used in the Micro Motion product range as suitable for fiscal metering of both oil and gas products, several terminal skid mounted loading measurement systems using Coriolis meters have been supplied around the area. The operators of that equipment are benefiting from the improved accuracy and reduced need for regular calibration verification routines that result from use of this technology. The same Micro Motion Coriolis meters, in smaller line sizes, are now being applied to commercial delivery systems for CNG retail sales of natural gas used as vehicle fuel, in several countries.
Micro Motion Coriolis flowmeters have also been demonstrated, tested and proved accurate on cryogenic LNG flow measurement, and will take their place in monitoring the tanker deliveries made from the new export terminals now being developed around the Gulf. The LNG tanker based Saab-Rosemount tank gauging systems are another part of the Emerson technology that is being applied to monitoring and control in this industry.
At the Ras Laffan Industrial Complex in Qatar, Emerson Process Management has won an estimated $30 million order for Fisher control valves to be installed at a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil for the Qatargas II LNG Plant. This expansion will add on to the existing Qatargas site with train Number 4 scheduled to begin delivery of 7.8 million tonnes annually in late 2007, and train Number 5 scheduled to produce an additional 7.8 million tonnes annually beginning one to two years later. Emerson is the Main Automation Contractor and is supplying PlantWeb digital plant architecture for the project.
An extensive range of high performance Fisher digital valves made it possible to implement and custom design valve solutions to meet all process noise, temperature, flow capacity and pressure requirements.
The Emerson involvement with the LNG industry encompasses the whole range of gas handling, from liquefaction, through transport, to regasification. Emerson has also been chosen as the main automation contractor to digitally automate Mexico’s first LNG regasification terminal at Altamira, near Tampico on the Gulf of Mexico. Project capabilities, local support and the PlantWeb digital automation approach led to the selection of Emerson, who will provide essential automation systems and services for the first import terminal in Mexico.
The regasification terminal will process up to 3.75 million tonnes of LNG per year base load when in full commercial operation in October 2006. The US Department of Energy, for example, expects LNG imports to the USA to grow by 16 per cent per annum through to 2025.
As the Main Automation Contractor, Emerson is responsible for the development, installation, configuration, testing, and commissioning of all elements of the system to control the process from the point of receipt through regasification, and into transmission pipelines. In addition, Emerson will integrate metering skids, vibration equipment monitoring, fire and gas, safety, and emergency shutdown systems.