When Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) recently needed a complex and urgent upgrade of the motor relays for one its major gas plants, the team at P&B were able to quickly assess the requirement and provide a tailored retrofit solution with minimal interruption to operations.

PDO is the major oil exploration and production company in the Sultanate of Oman, accounting for 70% of the country’s crude oil production and nearly all of its natural gas supply. The motor relay upgrade for one of its gas plants was particularly challenging due to its unconventional configuration and the very limited spaces in which the new relay systems could be installed.P&B retrofit relay challenge

Having previously worked with UK-based P&B on functional compliance for its motor reacceleration requirements, PDO called on P&B’s specialist expertise in the design and manufacture of retrofit motor relay system to provide the solution they needed.

The complex nature of the electrical set up at PDO’s plant meant that the electrical team on-site had limited visibility to operate the system effectively and had difficulty in troubleshooting failure issues. The P&B team were able to separate the system out into discrete parts to enable them to operate it more safely and effectively, and to troubleshoot any potential failures quickly and easily with improved indication and diagnostics.

 

P&B retrofit relay teamThe newly installed P&B motor protection relays were then commissioned, by a cross functional team made up of P&B middle eastern and UK staff. Data communications from the motor control centre downstream and SCADA system upstream were separated by using P&B’s Xcell Data Concentrator. The team also commissioned a new Engineering Work Station and installed the communications bus to bypass the existing network to reduce any risk of introducing faults by reusing the installed cables.

In order to ensure that the downtime for the plant was minimised, P&B undertook a thorough program of pre-shutdown preparations and functionally tested all the motor starters. The whole process from assessment to design and manufacture, took just 8 weeks to deliver, with an installation and commissioning shutdown period of only 3 weeks. The plant was restarted on time and back to full production within 24 hours.

 

PDO saih rawl gas site

P&B

P&B is a leading UK innovator of electrical protection, safety and control technologies.

Our specialist expertise and unrivalled experience is relied upon in heavy industries throughout the world to ensure the highest levels of safety and performance.