Chevron Uses Industrial Data Integration to Simulate Key Processes and Improve Asset Performance
Chevron uses industrial data and near-real-time process simulation to improve asset performance, operational visibility and collaboration. At the Alba gas processing plant, integrated time-series data enabled engineering teams to simulate critical processes, monitor performance and make informed operational decisions more efficiently.
This article was originally published on AVEVA’s global website.
Angela Taylor, an Applications Engineer at Chevron, explains how data integration enabled the simulation of critical processes in near real-time, delivering:
- Increased efficiency
- Improved profitability
- Safe and sustainable asset operations
Project Goals
- Integrate asset data for real-time process simulation
- Enable real-time performance monitoring
- Improve alert accuracy and simulation efficiency
- Support collaboration between geographically distributed experts
Key Challenges
- Fragmented data and models
- Geographically distributed expert team
- Need for strict data security
Solutions
The project used the PI System as the foundation for collecting, organizing and processing time-series operational data.
By making relevant process data available to engineering and simulation environments, the solution enabled specialists to monitor operations, analyze process behavior and run simulations using recent field data. This provided teams with a more consistent operational view and supported faster, data-driven decision-making.
Implementation Results
- Secure and flexible data exchange with scalable architecture (up to 10,000 events and 100,000 PI tags)
- Improved visibility across operational and engineering environments
- Simulation of key processes with action determination in under 2 minutes
- Collaboration improved asset safety, profitability, and operational resilience
Data Exchange Between Noble and Marathon in West Africa
As part of the gas monetization project at the Alen Field (Equatorial Guinea), Noble Energy and Marathon Oil developed a unified data exchange protocol between the field and the Alba plant.
Key Requirements:
- Secure data transmission
- Updates as close to real-time as possible
- Compatibility with the existing monitoring system
Data Transmitted:
- Pressures, temperatures, flow rates
- Pipeline shutdowns
- Nominations, work notes
- Signals for action consideration (without automatic response)
About the Expert: Angela Taylor (Chevron)
- Over 30 years in the oil and gas industry, including E&P, automation, measurement, data management, and equipment monitoring
- Worked at Noble Energy before its acquisition by Chevron in 2020
- Expert in Time Series Data for offshore and midstream assets
- Actively developing:
- Condition-Based Maintenance
- Predictive Analytics
- Operational Intelligence
- Member of PI Dev Club, PPDM, DAMA, SPE
- Grandmother of four and participant in the Children’s Miracle Network program