Press Release

Oil & Gas

ELITE

BP Grangemouth Refinery Ltd

Kinneil Terminal Ground Flare Control System
Ensuring the safety of any gas appliance is important. But when that gas
appliance is the massive flare system at BP Grangemouth, there is no
room for error. That is why they recently employed top of the range fail-
safe technology.

Crude oil, flowing down the pipelines from the Fortes field in the North
Sea, brings tons of gas. Stopping the flow of oil is not an option should the
volume of available gas exceed the demand. Therefore, the gas must be
flared off.

John Moyes, Asset Electrical Instrumentation Engineer with BP Grang-

emouth, explains : “If we have excess gas which we can’t process, we burn
it off in four ground flares. These flares are contained within massive
boxes, each with internal burner rails, allowing a gas and air mix so as to
produce a clean burn with no smoke.”

However, should the ground flare system fail for any reason, the gas is down.” By doing this, they ensured maximum throughput of the system
forced up the 300 feet elevated flare, where it meets a pilot light, is ignited and highest availability of the system. At the same time, they have - as per
and burned off. There is no margin for error at any stage of the operation. the original brief - retained the fail-safe integrity of the system.
So, when the existing system required substantial upgrading, BP brought
in West Lothian based Elite Control Systems Ltd. Their brief was to use All of which proves they have the flare for the job.
Siemens Programmable Logic Controllers within a system that would
prove to be fail-safe. They have also proved that sometimes the answer is not at the other side
of the World - but sitting right on your doorstep.
Elite disregarded the choice of using Normal PLC’s; a system failure could
not be contemplated. They also disregarded the use of Hot Standby -
when two PLC’s run simultaneously, executing the same process. The
theory being that if one fails, the other steps in and takes over the process.
The system Elite employed was the fail-safe system, using Siemens S5-
115F PLC’s.

Ewan McAllister, Technical Director with Elite explains: “The only thing
that is certain is that when something fails it will return to its natural
position: off. There is no way that anything in this world can be guaran-
teed to work 100% of the time, no matter what safeguards are built into
the system.” The fail-safe system employed at BP Grangemouth employs
this certainty that, in the event of failure, equipment will always return to
the “off” position.

The PLC sends an output to the gas valve. Take away that output and the
valve returns to its natural state: shut. At the same time, the PLC is con-
tinually energising an output to the nitrogen valve: holding the valve shut.
This means that, in the event a fail condition - for example if the electricity
supply was disrupted - the valves return to their natural state. The gas
valve shuts and the nitrogen valve opens, killing the possibility of any fire.
Elite’s work involved redesigning the existing system. They ripped out
and entirely re-wired the panel. They also completely re-wrote the code
then tested its integrity by simulating the whole operation on computer
back at their Bathgate base. The result was a system that met the original
brief - and exceeded all expectations.

Ewan McAllister explains: “The original system was configured in such a

way that, in the event of a failure, it simply shut the whole system down -
everything. We put in passivation groups. Now, if a fault were to develop,
that group in which the fault lies - and that group only, would be shut

Elite Control Systems Limited Tel: +44(0)1506 597900

Elite House Fax: +44(0)1506 597919
Starlaw Business Park email: sales@elitecontrols.co.uk
Livingston url: www.elitecontrols.co.uk
West Lothian, EH54 8SF For more information, please contact
United Kingdom sales@elitecontrols.co.uk

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