Projects - BP Clair Oil PIMS Telemetry

Tierney Strachan provides telemetry equipment to gather and distribute data for the Clair Oil Pipeline Integrity Monitoring System (COPIMS) between Clair Platform and Sullom Voe Terminal.

The Clair offshore installation is sited some 75km west off the Shetland Isles. First oil was achieved early in 2005. Product from Clair is delivered to the Sullom Voe Terminal (SVT) on Shetland by pipeline.

COPIMS Telemetry Equipment
COPIMS Telemetry Equipment
as installed and commissioned
on the Clair Platform

The Platform and SVT have a diversity of systems that require to share information for the Pipeline Integrity Monitoring System (PIMS). Tierney Strachan was tasked to deliver a system that gathers data from the disparate systems at each site and make it available to the other systems at either site.

Two telemetry units were installed, a remote telemetry unit (RTU) sited on Clair and a master telemetry unit (MTU) at SVT. These telemetry units, linked via satellite, provide a communications interface between various systems at their respective locations. The units act as data collectors and stores only, allowing access to the data by the other systems. The telemetry units perform minimal processing of the data and communicate with the external systems using Modbus protocol.

The SVT MTU interfaces to the following:

  • Honeywell DCS;
  • Clair Oil PIMS Server x 2;
  • Clair Oil Import Flowcomputer (S500);
  • RTU on Clair.

The SVT telemetry system consists of the MTU and 3 Lantronix Device Servers. Westermo fibre optic modems were used where the serial communications distance was too great.

The Clair RTU interfaces to the following:

  • Platform DCS (Honeywell);
  • MTU at SVT;
  • Platform Metering Supervisory Computers (MSC).

The Clair telemetry system consists of the RTU and 5 Lantronix Device Servers. The MTU and RTU systems consist of identical hardware using Schneider Momentum PLCs. This PLC offers native Modbus TCP interface via a 10BASE-T Ethernet port for communication.

Tierney Strachan worked closely with AdRem Consulting, Stephen Gillespie Consulting (SGC), Real Time Engineering (RTEL) and Honeywell to prepare accurate detailed design information and provide a low risk; minimal installation time solution.