Yokogawa Delivers N-IO based Integrated Control and Safety System (ICSS) for Banagas Gas Processing Plant

Executive Summary

About Banagas

Bahrain National Gas Company (Banagas) operates state of the art LPG plant facilities for the recovery of propane, butane, naphtha, and other marketable products from associated gas and refinery off gas (ROG). The associated gas comes from Tatweer oil wells and the off gas from the Bapco refinery.

The Third Central Gas Plant

The construction of the Third Central Gas Plant (CGP-III) was carried out as part of Bahrain's Economic Vision 2030 initiative. A major step forward for Bahrain's oil and gas sector, this has been hailed as a strategically important project that will ensure sustainable economic growth for the Kingdom of Bahrain.

CGP-III is a 350 MMSCFD gas processing plant with inlet gas treatment, mercury removal, gas sweetening, dehydration, NGL recovery, liquid fractionation, LPG treating, and acid and residue gas compression units as well as auxiliary systems and storage tanks and pipelines for product export. The NGL recovery unit utilizes a cryogenic turbo-expander, and residue gas produced by the plant is re-injected into the Tatweer network.

 

The Challenges and the Solutions

Construction of CGP-III was overseen by Bahrain National Gas Expansion Company (BNGEC), a separate Banagas entity under the umbrella of the National Oil and Gas Authority (NOGA). In the project early stages, BNGEC intended to have independent control and safety systems for this greenfield plant. Yokogawa advocated the use of an integrated control and safety system (ICSS) with ESD functionality and Yokogawa's proprietary network I/O (N-IO) technology.

One factor that worked in Yokogawa’s favor was that Banagas was very satisfied with the performance of a N-IO based control system at its CGP-I plant. By carefully evaluating Banagas’ requirements and working closely with different departments within this company, Yokogawa was able to convince them of the benefits offered by N-IO based systems at all three of their gas plants.  Yokogawa also made a strong case for the reductions in maintenance and other operating expenses (OPEX) that could be achieved with an N-IO based solution for ESD and other applications.

This project used IO-list engineering for the ProSafe-RS system, a first for Yokogawa in the Middle East. The system was delivered ahead of schedule, creating customer delight points for both JGC Corporation (the customer) and Banagas (the end user).

The project was also unique in that remote engineering was employed and this involved closely coordinated teamwork between JGC (Japan), Yokogawa Middle East & Africa- Bahrain, and Yokogawa India’s Global Delivery Center using the yi-Cloud platform and the TeamViewer software for the HMI and control loop prototype design. Complex sequences for drier, treater, and STB (stabilizer) process units were implemented to the complete satisfaction of JGC and Banagas.

The CGP-III project involved approximately 4,200 hardwired IOs and 5,000 soft IOs. Yokogawa offered CENTUM VP and ProSafe-RS with the N-IO hardware for the DCS, ESD, burner management system (BMS), and fire & gas system (FGS) applications. N-IO technology empowered optimization of the system configuration and ensured flexibility through universal IO assignment. In addition to drastically reducing the footprint of the instrument technical room (ITR) buildings and reducing power consumption, all HVAC requirements were met.

 

Customer Satisfaction

“It was a pleasure working with Yokogawa Middle East & Africa (YMA) for the CGP-III project of The Bahrain National Gas Expansion Company. The project was successfully commissioned in October 2018. 
N-IO concept was chosen for DCS and SIS (safety instrumented systems). It was a challenging decision to accord approval of N-IO for SIS, because  at that time the product was just launched and there was no installed base for SIS globally. However, all the technical and safety concerns of N-IO were clarified, and this solution was successfully implemented by the competent  team of YMA engineers. 

Yokogawa supports us with just a phone-call away for any technical issues on the system. I consider Yokogawa not only as a reliable brand, but also as a partner to achieve the company’s goal.”

Mr. Sanjib Changkakati
Acting Head Engineer-Instrument
Bahrain National Gas Company