Improving oil production through the use of improved control

Improving the performance and profitability of process plants by improving their control has been an area for investment for over 20 years. In particular the application of model-based optimising controllers has been widely applied in several sectors such as oil refining. In oil production less attention has been paid to control as a way to improve operating profit. However in the last few years, the focus in this area has started to increase. In many cases, significant improvements in operating performance can be achieved by improvements to the configuration and tuning, of basic controllers. In particular, simple changes and addition of rule-based methods to the control of the separation drums at the top of the riser can significantly improve the extent to which changes to riser flow regimes can be managed, reducing the number of trips. Once these savings have been achieved, applying model-based optimising controls will often give further benefits by operating the production facility at the most economic set of limits. Initial projects in this area indicate that savings can be large with pay back times of a few months.