Case Study: Fuel Farm Lubrication and Fuel Dispensing System

 

REPLACE OUTDATED CONTROLS FOR  FUEL AND LUBRICANT BLENDING/DISPENSING

 

A marine and land fuel and lubrication farm contained multiple storage tanks, as well as equipment to transfer fuel and lubricant to ships and offload supply trucks. Its outdated control system was cumbersome and unsafe. Onyx was called on to implement a ticket and custody transfer system that improved efficiency of fuel and  lubricant dispensing and reduced risk.

 

 





 

The Problem

Older controls did not provide operators with enough information when fueling ships. The obsolete controls needed to be replaced with volumetric meters that met current standards. Other issues were ensuring uptime and backup of critical data, the potential to mishandle fuel, insufficient monitoring and incorrect logging and ticketing vulnerability.


The Solution

Onyx Engineering enabled greater fuel throughput, increased efficiency through a Human-Machine Interface (HMI), improved backup and redundancy for improved reliability. Various sensors can now be easily monitored avoiding system damage. A modern liquid metering system was implemented that had automatic temperature compensation and high measurement accuracy for custody transfer of petroleum products.


The Results

The Fuel Farm Control System upgrade increased the usability, efficiency and safety of the existing equipment. We provided a centralized computer system that provided redundancy and backup capability for ease-of-use. The bottom line: improved operator control, increased capacity to handle more fuel blends, throughput, enhanced automation capabilities, improved measurement, and increased productivity.


Project Details


 

            ROI                            

About 18 Months

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 

          Team                        

                    Client: 1                                                      

Onyx: 2 Engineers, 1 PM

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

 


 

Services Provided

Control Engineering and Design

PLC/HMI Programming

O & M and AutoCAD Documentation 

Start-up and Commissioning 

 

                                                                 


 

Technology
Used

Schneider Electric ModiconM340 PLC

Allen-Bradley SLC Series PLC

Liquid Controls LC M-Series Meter

Modbus TCP

Wonderware InTouch

DUCM Universal Communications Module