Commercial Liquids Application

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 3^rd 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.

Liquid Management System (LMS) Applications Relationships and Data Flow

Pipeline_Management_Solution.pdf

The above figure depicts the relationships among LMS applications. 

The heart of LMS is the Metering application where it gets meter data either from the flow computer or from a tank controlled by the tank management application.

Working together with Ticketing application, the Metering application defines the size of the batch in a ticket and the flow rate that will move this batch in the pipeline model of the batch tracking application. The batch tracking updates the position of the batch along the pipeline model and its linepack is calculated periodically.

As the batch tracking application reposition the batches in the pipeline model, the hydraulic profile is updated to reflect the effect of product in the batch on the pressure profile.

Finally, the metering data and linepack data along with the volume of product in the tanks are taken as input to do volume balancing in the PLM application.

 

Liquids Management Suite (LMS) will be deployed at the MCC SCADA as a centralized application.

LMS is a suite of applications that work together to provide the following liquid management functions :

·         Monitoring, correcting and recording of metering data.

·         Managing ticket operations.

·         Tracking of batches in the pipeline.

·         Tracking of anomalies (e.g., pig) in the pipeline.

·         Estimating the arrival (ETAs) of batches and anomalies at checkpoints/nodes of the pipeline.

·         Calculating and recording linepack information.

·         Detecting the potential leaks in the pipeline.

·         Monitoring pressures along the pipeline.

·         Monitoring tank information

The applications/modules of LMS to be used to provide the above functions are as follows :

·         Metering application will provide the monitoring and the correcting of metering data.

·         Ticketing application will provide the ticket operations management.

·         Batch tracking application will provide the tracking of batches and anomalies in the pipeline, and calculating the ETAs of the batches and anomalies at checkpoints.

·         Linepack application will calculate and record the linepack information of the pipeline.

·         Pipeline Leak Monitoring application (PLM) will provide the monitoring and detection of potential leaks in the pipeline.

·         Hydraulic Profile application will provide a visual representation of the pressure profile along the pipeline.

·         Tank Management application will provide tank monitoring and tank volume calculation.

Metering

Metering application allows LMS to read metering data directly from the Flow Computer and perform corrections if required (usually the Flow Computer has already done corrections on the raw meter data). The changes in meter data collected over time are used to calculate the flow rate of the meter. Several metering operating schemes can be accommodated, for example, metering can accommodate a rolling (meter count that never resets) or a batching (meter count that resets on a new ticket) metering count schemes.

Ticketing

Metering data collected and corrected by the metering application are stored in tickets. A ticket represents a batch of crude that passes through a meter. A ticket contains information about the batch such as its shipper and destination, the start and end times of the ticket, the projected and real sizes of the batch, and the product inside the batch. Moreover, tickets can be subjected to operations essential to ticket management such as ticket start, ticket stop and ticket cut. And most importantly, completed tickets will be stored in historical database for reporting purposes.

Batch Tracking

After a ticket defines a batch as the product passes through a meter, the location/position of the batch along the pipeline can be tracked using the batch tracking application. Using a model of the pipeline, a batch shall move along the pipeline proportional to the flow rate of the pipe segment it is in. This pipeline modeling provides an approximation of the batch position in the pipeline. To detect the actual batch position in the pipeline, interface detection instruments such as densitometers are needed to detect the actual start and end of a batch based on the density of the product in the batch. When there is a discrepancy between the modeling approximation and the interface detection data, an operator can do batch editing to fix the position and/or the size of the batch.

Other than approximating the position of the batch in the pipeline, the batch tracking application can also be used to approximate the position of anomalies such as a pig as it travels along the pipeline.

Using the position of the batch or anomaly in the pipeline, the batch tracking application can also calculate their estimated time of arrivals (ETAs) to checkpoints or nodes along the pipeline. Checkpoints are usually configured at the pig traps, the booster and delivery meter stations.

Linepack

Based on the pressure and temperature telemetry data and the product that is occupying the pipe segment, the linepack of the pipe segment can be calculated. And since the pipeline is just a concatenation of pipe segments, the linepack of the pipeline can also be calculated. The linepack of the pipeline represents the inventory of the pipeline which can be calculated and recorded periodically for reporting purposes.

Pipeline Leak Monitoring (PLM)

PLM attempts to monitor the pipeline for potential leaks. It uses a volume balancing methodology where it tries to monitor the line balance (meter in and meter out) and changes in linepack. PLM can be set to monitor this volume balancing over short and long term periods. Short period monitoring is usually used for detecting major leakages while the long period monitoring is better for detecting minor ones.

Hydraulic Profile

Other than PLM, pressure profile can also be used to detect potential leakage and sometimes its location. Using the telemetry pressure data from SCADA, a pressure profile of the pipeline can be monitored in real-time. An unusual drop of pressure can be visually reflected in the pressure profile which may indicate a potential leak. Moreover, the pressure profile can also be used to monitor for proper operating pressure of the pipeline. Along with the telemetry pressure data and pressure interpolation between the telemetry data, the maximum allowable operating pressure (MAOP) and elevation pressure are also represented in the profile.

Because the hydraulic profile depends on telemetry pressure data, the more transmitters installed along the pipeline, the better the resolution of the pressure profile. Telvent has recommended and made our assumption that there will be pressure and temperature transmitters installed at every station, pig trap and block valve locations.

Tank Management

Tank Management application allows monitoring of the level and product inventory inside a tank. Using data from tank level, pressure and temperature transmitters, the type of product inside the tank and the strap table of the tank, the volume of product inside the tank can be calculated and corrected.