China petrochemical complex to install largest FOUNDATION system

Shanghai SECCO Petrochemicals Company Ltd. (SECCO), a $2.7-billion joint venture between BP, Sinopec and Shanghai Petrochemical Corp. (SPC), will install the world’s largest FOUNDATION fieldbus system to date at a new 10-plant petrochemical complex near Shanghai, People’s Republic of China.

When it becomes operational in 2005, the SECCO complex will be one of the world’s most highly automated petrochemical facilities, producing 2.3 million metric tons of chemical products annually. Emerson Process Management will serve as the main instrument vendor for the $30-million project.

FOUNDATION fieldbus will provide an open, integrated operating and diagnostics information architecture at the SECCO site. Fieldbus-based systems will manage over 80,000 I/O points throughout the facility, and communicate with more than 25,000 fieldbus devices used to control a naphtha-fed ethylene cracker and nine downstream derivative plants.

Shanghai SECCO Petrochemicals chose FOUNDATION fieldbus technology because of its ability to provide plant personnel with robust device, equipment, and process health information, regardless of an operator’s physical location on the site. FOUNDATION fieldbus and Emerson Process Management’s DeltaV will enable sophisticated, in-service, self-diagnostic capabilities that will support SECCO’s plant-optimization strategies by reducing maintenance time and costs, and increasing operational uptime, according to John Berra, Emerson Process Management’s president and chairman of the Fieldbus Foundation (both Austin TX).

Richard Timoney, FF’s president and ceo, adds that the SECCO project is the latest indicator that FOUNDATION fieldbus is a preferred technology for large-scale automation projects in the developing Asia-Pacific countries and in other industries worldwide.

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