BP chooses control systems for North Sea project expansion

By Control Engineering Staff January 10, 2006

Wickliffe, OH —BP has selected ABB ’s System 800xA High Integrity for integrated control and safety at its Valhall redevelopment project in the North Sea. ABB is already doing pre-engineering work in safety, automation, and telecommunications on the oil field facility. The contracts are part of a series of upgrades being made to extend production from the field until 2050.

BP’s order includes System 800xA Extended Automation for process control and High Integrity integrated safety instrumented system (SIS). The equipment will be fully integrated with existing ABB Advant/Master systems. The facility will be operational in 2009. The field was discovered in 1975; production began in 1982.

System 800xA High Integrity is a complete, scalable IEC 61508 and IEC 61511-compliant SIS that spans the entire safety loop, including SIL-rated ac 800M controllers, field devices, I/O modules, and field actuators. Embedded safety and control within the same architecture improves process availability while reducing risk to overall plant operation. Flexible architecture allows control and safety functions to be combined within the same controller or separated within the same system.

—Control Engineering Daily News DeskJeanine Katzel, senior editor, jkatzel@reedbusiness.com