The PRAM system is ultra powerful and totally reliable and integrates plant and business information from both plants, greatly improving reporting on production and enhanced process visibility through a decentralised network made up of four separate installations: two at the MTBE plant, a third at the PP plant and a fourth in the plant laboratory.

At the heart of each installation is Marex's PROMACE Plant Information Management System, one of the most powerful in the world. The MTBE plant was the first plant to be commissioned by The Saudi European Petrochemical Company, which is known as Ibn Zahr in the Kingdom, and the Marex PRAMS have been active at the plant from commissioning in 1994.

A key feature of the Marex system is that it integrates information across the whole site from a wide variety of control equipment, ranging from programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to full distributed control systems (DCS). These include Valmet, Yokogawa and Honeywell DCS and Siemens PLCs. Each DCS and PLC manufacturer has its own display stations, data formats, reports and histories, creating a difficulty in monitoring data from multiple sources, including 30 000 data points.

Users are able to examine the performance of the plant either over an on-line period of a year, or from selected weeks recovered from the off-line tape archives. The systems are equipped with a full set of configuration tools that allow continuous upgrades and enhancements to be performed on site.

A crucial latest development of the system has been the provision of a live link from the PRAMS system to an Online Virtual Analyser (OVA) which models output predictions of impurity levels and overheads in the MTBE plant. These outputs are then logged into the PRAMS system and historised allowing comparisons of the actual and model based analysers.

The Al Jubail PRAMS architecture illustrates key features of process control progress in the petrochemical industry. Most importantly, the system is integrated across the entire site, fully embracing the comprehensive data output from an extensive, and various, data source. This information is processed in real-time and made available to users in highly user-friendly interface environment displaying not only basic plant information but derived indicators - achieved through data "nesting",. the aAutomated production of derived indicators from raw data to gives averages, means, standard deviations, etc - and business information such as performance and "profit", maintenance, materials management, quality control and product tracking. This visibility allows very fine, fingertip, control of the process leading to greater efficiency, reliability and reduction in waste.

The Marex software being installed in the Gulf today is already in use in over two hundred applications in chemicals, food, petrochemicals, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, power generation and general manufacturing throughout the world, providing monitoring, management, optimisation, modelling and control of many diverse, dynamic, and hazardous processes, in often the largest plants. In the Gulf, Marex has recently installed systems in the Gulf Aluminium Rolling Mill (GARMCO) in Bahrain, and the world's biggest methanol plant at Ar-Razi in Saudi Arabia.

Danny Fisher, Marex Managing Director, adds: "Marex information management software has been specifically developed for the largest, most complex plants, like Ibn Zahr. Our latest release Exaquantum™ is the most powerful and user friendly to date. MS Windows throughout, it is infinitely scaleable and highly cost efficient."

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