Commercial Liquids Applications (CLA) is an integrated suite of real-time business operation, pipeline logistics and accounting modules. CLA allows companies to conduct business in an entirely Web-based environment. In design, CLA resembles many other Web-based interfaces: users interact with the system through hyperlinks, text fields, check boxes and buttons. On a business level, CLA operates on the basis of a two-way communication process between a shipper and a Pipeline Company.
As part
an integrated solution, CLA also provides the means for the customer to
predict, plan and monitor in real-time all aspects of daily volume management
to meet supply and demand market forces.
When CLA is integrated with flow
measurement data from a measurement system, operators can compare volume flow
throughout the day to the day’s supply and delivery plans.
Application
provides the means to efficiently manage supply, transportation and customer
deliveries in one application, preventing a flow deficit or surplus at the end
of the day.
CLA is extremely flexible and allows data to be grouped and viewed
at a meter, station, and region or stock level.
With
CLA, Producer Oil shall be able to achieve following goals:
·
Manage the supply chain with one integrated solution
·
Manage Inventory and Balancing of all pipelines as a whole
·
Optimize the operation of pipelines
·
Exercise agreements and contracts on-time and more accurately
·
Support extremely flexible business environment of an open market
·
Share more accurate and complete business information among stake
holders
Pipeline_Management_Solution.pdf
Architecture
CLA will
be deployed on an integrated and centralized basis at the MCC with client
access thru the WEB. It will be installed on the dedicated Web/Report server
which is connected to the MCC SCADA network behind a firewall to allow a secure
access from both internal and external users.
It will
share the clustered SQL Server installed with Real-time/Historical service of
SCADA system for better performance and reliability.
Since
CLA is a web application, including management and configuration, only internet
browser is required at the client side.
CLA is
developed upon EIIF (Enterprise Information Integration Framework), an advanced
platform that has following features :
- Web 2.0 technology
o .NET + Ajax
+ Flash.
o B/S architecture, C/S desktop style GUI, with pros from both – zero
client maintenance cost of B/S and rich user experience of C/S.
o Asynchronized refresh technology, reduced response time and bandwidth
consumption.
o Dozens controls embedded, i.e. treeview, toolbar, textbox, listbox,
menu, flashbox, etc.
- Enhanced security model
o Unique multi-layer security model can fulfill requirement of any size of
organizations.
o Can be integrated with Windows Domain or 3rd party solutions
for SSO.
o Support remote users logon with secure username and password.
- Fully integrated with Visual Studio
o User interfaces and business logics all developed within VS2008/2010.
o WYSIWYG, no requirement of coding with JavaScript for web applications,
just drag and drop, as easy as desktop application development.
- Unique ORM (Object-Relation Mapping) technology
o Generates objects from database tables automatically and reduces the
time and error of coding dramatically.
o Supports all commercial RDBMS.
- Embedded dynamic chart controls
o Supports all popular format of charts, i.e., bar, pie, column, line,
etc.
o 3-D animation.
o User definable styles.
- Embedded easy-to-use reporting module
o User definable reports.
o Support Excel template.
o WYSIWYG.
Based on EIIF, CLA is designed specifically for logistics business of
oil industry. For TPCOP, following modules of CLA are provided :
- Contract Management (Transportation/Sales)
- Nomination and Allocation
- Inventory and Balancing Management
- Stock Account Monitoring
- Billing and Invoicing
Contract Management
CLA accepts and evaluates
contract requests for capacity and storage space, over the Internet.
Transportation contracts allow shippers to ship a daily amount of oil through a
pipeline system for a specified period of time. Using the CLA interface,
shippers request contract points along the pipeline system, and then submit
their contract requests to the pipeline company for evaluation. Shippers can
also view pending and active contracts, and request changes to contracted
capacities.
The system gathers all
contracts and contract requests and displays them in tabular format for review
and adjustment by pipeline company personnel. When contract administrators
approve a contract, CLA generates a contract document. Through e-mail, post, or
fax, the company can then send this contract to the shipper for signing.
Nominations
CLA accepts and evaluates monthly and daily nominations over the web
interface.
Since the demand for oil changes day to day or month to month, the
shipper must submit daily nominations to indicate the actual amount of oil they
want to transport through the various points. These nominations define the
entry and exit locations and the volumes at each location. Nominations may also
indicate injections to, or withdrawal from, storage facilities. Shippers can
enter nominations for one or more contracts, and modify these nominations up to
a specified time of the business day. The system validates all nominations
against the capacities of the point. Personnel can modify or reject a shipper’s
nomination that exceeds the contracted volume for the point or the physical
limits of the pipeline.
Allocations
CLA sets and runs automated allocation methods to distribute volumes
among the nominations. CLA uses the following set of allocation formulas to
distribute the measured volume of oil among all the nominations made against a
point:
• Pro Rata - Proportionally distribute
volumes
• Percentage – Distribute based on a configured
percentage
• Ranking – Allocation based on ordered rank
• Swing shipper – Allocate balance of volume
to designated shipper
The Allocation Summary screen provides information on allocated volumes
for all contractible points. Personnel can use this screen to review daily
nominations and allocations, and to manually adjust allocated volumes.
Allocation reports can be published to shippers to enable them to
perform their billing activities. If prior-period adjustments are made,
allocation reports can be republished showing the differences to the shippers.
Inventory and Balancing Management
This module can manage oil
physical inventory and balancing of the whole logistics chain. It collects
metering data of pipelines from SCADA/LMS or other sources periodically,
calculates station balance from metering data and then regional balance from
station balance based on configured pipeline segments and their relationship
with stations.
Stations are connected to
regions as different classes, i.e. receipt point, delivery point, linepack, so
that net volume inflow, net volume outflow and loss and unaccounted volume flow
(LAUF) are calculated automatically for regions.
Inventory and balance data
are displayed as tabulars and trendings, so users can analyze the data efficiently
for any metering problem.
Manual data entry of meter
readings is also provided to endure communication lost to the site or non-EFM
points.
Billing and Invoicing
The invoicing module allows
shippers to view all of the invoices for their contracts. Each invoice lists
the applicable charges for a period of time. These charges are for oil
transportation, delivery and storage, imbalance penalties, and out-of-period
adjustments. Tariff charges are calculated using volumes from allocations and
information from the applicable Tariff Sheet. Financial staff, meanwhile, can
view and generate invoices for all shipper contracts. They can also manually
add additional charges and perform reconciliation on existing invoices due to
out-of period adjustments.
When a company approves and
issues a contract, CLA enables personnel to assign a tariff sheet to the
contract. The tariff sheet consists of a series of charges and tariffs applied
to all contracted points. When financial staff creates an invoice for a shipper,
CLA uses the assigned tariff sheet to create a list of charges and tariffs for
all points contracted by the shipper. Financial staff can create or modify
existing tariff sheets and charges through simple data entry screens. CLA will
also support the specific billing model of Producer.
This model can define
tariff for each segment of pipeline and bills the shippers based on their usage
of segments.
Invoices can be printed or
sent to the shipper using email, fax or published on the web. The financial
transactions associated with the invoices can be extracted in a generic format
that can be used by accounting systems such as SAP, Baan, Peoplesoft etc. This
includes; accounts receivable, accounts payable and general ledger
transactions.
Stock Account Management
Oil stock account management of CLA can track the
virtual inventory for shippers. Each shipper can have more than one account
that is configured with initial fill, relevant contracts and delivery points.
Shippers and transporters can reconcile the stock accounts each month. Discrepancy
of oil stock account balance and line pack change will be allocated to stock
account with customized calculation. Oil stock on the account can be transferred
to other accounts.