E&P Daily News SPE Edition Day 2
(E&P : Exploration & Production)

Dear Colleague:

We hope you enjoyed yesterday's preview issue of the E&P show daily, as part of
the 2006 SPE Conference.

In case you are unable to attend the show, and as an advance look for those in
attendance, we have made today's issue available for your reading enjoyment.

Just click on this link to retreive it:
http://www.eandpnet.com/pdf/SPE%20Tuesday.pdf

Please accept it with our compliments.

Sincerely,
Russell Laas
Publisher
E&P Magazine

Global LNG Outlook 2006

For you guys who are interested and perhaps live nearby or have some budget...

Don't miss out on this year's Global LNG Outlook 2006. Online registration closes at midnight on Monday, October 3rd and seats are going fast. This year's Global LNG Outlook 2006 will be held October 4-5, 2006, at the JW Marriott in New Orleans, LA.

Click here to see the current agenda and register.

If you don't have the opportunity to visit us online, onsite registration will open at 8:00 AM at the JW Marriott in New Orleans on Wednesday morning.

I look forward to seeing you at the conference.

Sincerely,

Bill Anderson
Director of Conferences and Events
Hart Energy Publishing
www.hartenergyconferences.com

COST CUTTING JUSTIFICATION!

In any chemical industry and other industries, we cannot avoid from purchasing equipment or service which we need in order to perform our work in order to achieve our company objective/target. Whether we are working in a research institution or service company or chemical plant or etc...We need to purchase something as asset(s) or consumable(s) or service(s).

As engineers/executive/managers, we need to make wise and technical decision based on wise justification before deciding to purchase something. We need to consider the economical aspect and the Return on Investment (ROI) as well.

However, from my humble experience, we usually know what we want and how the product/service works. We are also capable to evaluate and justify the product/service which best suite our demand and requirement.

However, the problem arises when our superior/procurement department will question us and try to get the cheapest product/service without having better comprehension of what is exactly our requirement. Often, they'll overwrite our demand and honour us with cheaper product/service that they manage to get. Their concept and philosophy is most of the time COST CUTTING!!! They do not want to compromise on the quality and safety aspects!!!

The following is an excellent article that i read from Engineer Live regarding the COST of COST CUTTING by Steve Hayward from Delta International. I really recommend you reading it...

Buy cheap, pay dear. Driving down costs can be expensive

Steve Hayward this discusses the potential risks and detrimental effects involved in cutting costs.

There is a well known saying which states: “Buy cheap, pay dear”. An equally common expression is: “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”. The French say: “On a rien sans rien.” (You cannot get something for nothing) while the Spanish equivalent is “quien algo quiere, algo le cuesta”.

You start to realise that we all pretty much agree the world over that if you cut corners on price there is a very good chance you will pay for it later. So why have we become obsessed with driving costs down irrespective of whether this actually has a detrimental effect upon us and our objectives?

Read the rest from the link…
http://www.engineerlive.com/power-engineer/opinion/16349/buy-cheap-pay-dear-driving-down-costs-can-be-expensive.thtml

SCADA and Communications

People new to the industry often use the terms SCADA (Supervisory control and data acquisition) and DCS (Distributed Control System) interchangeably. Although there's no sharp line separating these two categories of control systems, and specific implementations often have characteristics of each, it is useful to distinguish between them because of their unique strength and weaknesess.

The most significant factor differentiating SCADA system and DCS today is the "human in the loop". Well, enough about those explanation. It can be more technical and quite difficult to absorb for some people who are not really familiar with both control system.

To makes thing simpler and easier to understand what are SCADA and DCS, lets see their characteristics:

SCADA System
1. Geographic span: Large
2. Point count : Large
3. Data acquisition rates : Moderate - seconds to minute
4. Data acquisition network : Slow with moderate error rate
5. Graphic User Interfase (GUI) : Full featured
6. Alarming subsystem : Full featured
7. Control actions : Human initiated

DCS System
1. Geographic span : Small
2. Point count : Small
3. Data acquisition rates : Very fast - miliseconds to seconds
4. Data acquisition network : Fast with low error rate
5. Graphic User Interfase (GUI) : Basic
6. Alarming subsystem : Basic
7. Control actions : Programmatically initiated

Perhaps, later I'll slowly explain about these type of control systems...We must know and appreciate these system as it smoothen our process control and operation. These control system are applied in the oil & gas as well as in refineries too serving the oils and fats industries.

Heat Exchanger Cleaning & Maintenance - GASKETs

Continuation from previous post...

You can either dismantle all the plate and frame heat exchanger OR you do the chemical cleaning. Well, i can say the decision must be correct. You must decide which method to chose.

If you decide to dismantle the heat exchanger, this will give you the highest cost impact. Why? This is because, when you dismantle the plate & frame heat exchanger, the gaskets in between the plates cannot be used anymore. Once the heat exchanger is opened, it can't be used again. The polymer structure of the gasket has already be distorted and is not in a prefect condition to be used again. By the time you open the heat exchanger, some of the gasket, might also be damaged too. Some of them have became very thin. Some of them have been torn. There are many types of condition. And most of the time, oil leaks in the heat exchanger is due to the gasket problem or the operator/technician did not fix the gasket properly on plate heat exchanger.

One set of gasket to be placed in between two plates is very expansive. Depending on what type of heat exchanger, type of plates, type of oils/fluids flowing, and also range of operating temperature. This information can be obtain from a gasket or heat exchanger supplier/manufacturer. So, imagine if the plate and frame heat exchanger have 220 plates, you must have 221 gaskets placed in between the plates and the two stainless steel frames on both ends.

Learning Centre

I'd heard about the Spirax Sarco learning centre a couple of month ago. It's a very interesting site. There are tonnes of information inside it. You can learn about energy, steam engineering principle, heat transfer, boiler and much-much more. There are a lot to learn!!! And the informations are given free. See the Spirax Sarco Learning Centre HERE

Centralized Control Room

I was given a new responsibility by my superior few months ago. As a chemical engineer, i felt this task a very chalenging but enriching! I don't have any background on how this thing work! I was given the task of developing Centralized Control Room (CCR). I have to learn a new stuff that I don't really know. I have to know all the new terms and meaning of all short phrases and wording. I have to learn the control system of all the control system in all plants. It's a very interesting project to handle. As there's not much physical object to be seen or touch. Perhaps some cable/fibre optic/PC etc. Need to understand some network architecture too...

Well, there's something in Siemen product and learning centre about the CCR info. Siemen have a wide range of product for a very good and efficient way of control and planing in a plant/factory. You can visit and learn some stuff there....I'm also in the learning process too...visit the HERE

Learn about Siemen Simatic IT Manufacturing Execution System (MES) HERE