Gas Production with FieldConnex®

According to experts, extraction of natural gas from the Groningen natural gas field will be depleted before 2010. The Groningen natural gas field was placed in operation in 1959. The original volume of 2,700 billion cubic metres made it the largest natural gas deposit in the world. The operating company, Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschapij BV (NAM BV), was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Shell and Esso group of corporations. With an annual extraction quantity of 50 billion cubic metres of natural gas and just under 1 billion cubic metres of oil, NAM BV is the largest producer of natural gas in the Netherlands.

The reserves remaining in the Groningen natural gas field can be extracted by introducing compressed air. This will ensure that natural gas flows for another forty years. The residual extraction requires retrofitting of the drill hole head groups. This will be done as part of the Groningen Long Term Project (GLT), which is designed to ensure production continues in the future.

Modernisation of the drill hole head groups

The first eleven drill hole head groups were already refitted in 1998. After a multi-step tender and bid process, the refitting project was awarded to the Dutch consortium STORK GLT. The consortium's main instrument vendor is Yokogawa. The Japanese control system manufacturer Yokogawa provides system information systems, safety systems and local control systems up to and including devices for complete system outfitting.

Natural gas deposits in the Netherlands (source: NAM BV)

The STORK GLT Consortium has been commissioned to modernise the entire Groningen system. The 29 drill hole head groups in the field, each consisting of about ten drill hole heads with a total of 25,000 tag numbers, are controlled by about 460 station, distributed in turn over 25 areas. The total extent of the system is estimated at 640,000 tag numbers.

Migration to fieldbus technology

Conventional technology was still in use for the first modernisation phase in 1998, and a competitor was able to win the contract. The current project phase with its seven additional drill hole groups is based on fieldbus technology. The high output capacity and the excellent use made of available cable lengths played a decisive role. The estimated investment volume in the area of interface technology is over 2 million Euro.

We were finally able to convince NAM BV with our FieldConnex® fieldbus barriers, valve couplers and power packs and we were added to their list of preferred vendors. In the meanwhile, Pepperl+Fuchs has also received the contract for the Foundation Fieldbus part in Spitzbergen as well as the conventional interface system dealing with the localised control system and the safety system.

A win for FieldConnex®

We prevailed in the last phase of the tender with the combination of FieldBarrier, valve box and power pack plus a specially adapted software package.