Gas Storage & LNG Solutions
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plants and storage of LNG have increased in popularity over the last decade and are replacing traditional natural gas storage capacity at a rapid pace. LNG facilities range from satellite facilities assisting gas distribution utilities, to peak-shaving facilities supporting both transmission and distribution companies, to the export/ import facilities that distribute LNG around the world. As part of the Continua™ Gas Solutions (CGS) suite of products we have created applications that can be used to manage both LNG and gas storage facilities.
Continua™ Gas Solution' (CGS) uniqueness is due to its simplicity and modular design, which make it safe, user friendly, scalable, and easy to maintain. This extends to the applications suited for LNG and traditional gas storage operators, where the customer can select the applications required for their operations.
The majority of the activities associated with LNG plant storage and gas storage facilities are associated with supervisory control and monitoring of current operations. The applications provided by CGS for use by LNG and storage operators is built atop OSI's industry-leading monarch™ operational technology (OT) platform.
Originally designed for critical electrical network operations with highly rigid performance, capacity, throughput and cyber-security requirements, monarch serves as an ideal platform for both small- and large-scale LNG and gas storage automation projects.
The LNG and storage applications found within CGS are easily operated and maintained using OSI's next-generation OpenView™ graphical user interface (GUI). Based on the Microsoft .NET framework, CGS supports a native interface to the monarch visualization platform (OpenView) and its corresponding web user interface (Voyager™). These intuitive user interfaces are shared by all OSI systems, making it simple for operators to master multiple industries.
The LNG and storage applications found within CGS are provided by four separate products based on their usage:
- CGSData — used for data- and meter-based applications like inventory management
- CGSModel — used for model-based applications like composition tracking
- CGSSafety — used for safety-based applications like safe operation
- CGSPredictive — used for predicting how future operations might change based on current operations
CGS operates in a real-time environment where available field measurements collected by SCADA present up-to-the- second system connectivity metrics, enabling highly accurate calculations and control.
One of the key applications required for LNG and gas storage operators is a good inventory management application. A storage application has been created within CGSData to enable the user to configure storage manually from a static model/table or use the information in the connectivity model. Based on the amount of natural gas that has been supplied to or delivered from a specific gas storage location, the inventory of the storage can be quickly and accurately calculated.
If the LNG or gas storage facility has an import or export pipeline associated with it, the linepack application within CGSData reads the SCADA values for the pressure, temperature, flow rate, and compressibility of the gas in the pipeline. It then applies the standard linepack equation to calculate the linepack volume for the import/export pipeline.
