4C CEO Steve Probst kicked off the 4C HSE conference here in Austin, Texas with a look at how digital transformation initiatives are having an impact of driving health, safety and environmental improvements. Downstream hydrocarbon processors are driven to be among the top quartile of their peers to drive business performance.
Here’s a portion of the description of Steve’s keynote:
Digital transformation allows the use of data on a daily basis to reduce emissions, improve safety, reduce cost and increase mechanical availability. An everyday example is tire pressure. 5 years ago we checked the air pressure in our tires once a month. Now there is a tire pressure indicator that displays the pressure of each tire when we start the car. Properly inflated tires increase gas mileage (reduce cost and reduce emissions), have fewer blow-outs (improve safety) and increase the life of the tire (increase mechanical availability). Similarly, flare flow was not measured 5 to 10 years ago. Most facilities now measure the flow, concentration, supplemental fuel and steam (or air for air assisted flares). This results in operators scrambling to find the source of flow when the measured flow or concentration goes outside a constraint (sulfur, Btu, opacity, etc.). The digital transformation for flares is the use of Emerson’s non-intrusive transmitter based flow detection enabled with Mesh Technology, Score Valves Midas meters (surveys and installations), BH FLareIQ, and Extrel’s Mass Spectrometry to identify in real time the source and impact of flare flow, composition and control.
Technologies have advanced on many fronts to drive improved performance. For example, from a methane detection standpoint, satellites, HASS, drones, handheld sensors, mobile sensors, and fixed sensors, such as the Rosemount 708 acoustic transmitter can identify releases and leaks to improve emissions and reduce the hazards in hazardous locations.
We’ll have several Emerson presenters today and tomorrow whom I’ll cover in the separate posts.
