Enginuity Global & QuarterNorth Energy

QuarterNorth Energy, a leading Oil & Gas producer that operates deep water, shallow, and shelf assets in the Gulf of Mexico, needed to modernize infrastructure and process control technology on its Bullwinkle oil platform – a project critical to improve safety and responsiveness, eliminate costly downtime, and drive operational excellence.

QuarterNorth Energy turned to Enginuity Global, an SI with expertise in process automation, control, and field services. In only 45 days, Enginuity upgraded all PLC panels and centralized monitor and control applications by running their Rockwell DCS, including HMI/SCADA and Rockwell Automation Factory Talk® Historian, with SQL Server supporting 6,000 I/Os, on a single, fault tolerant Stratus Edge Computing platform. This resulted in higher yield, improved safety, and a decrease in unplanned downtime.

Eric Belgard - Lead for Automation and Controls

“The ftServer is a tank. It offers a simplistic approach to a complex system. Part of our motto at Enginuity is, ’We simplify a complex world.’ And so, Stratus servers definitely help reduce some of that complexity. And, we were able to save a substantial amount of money using them.”

Challenges

  • Modernize oil platform’s legacy control systems and infrastructure
  • Decentralized control systems
  • Outdated servers, workstations, and controllers
  • System response time in the tens of seconds slowed reaction time, decision making, and visibility on operations
  • Control system/safety system at capacity

Solutions

  • Stratus ftServer deployed in the control room
  • Rockwell Automation PlantPAx™ Distributed
  • Control System (DCS) including HMI/SCADA and Factory Talk® historian with SQL Server supporting 6,000 I/Os
  • Anti-virus and cluster management software
  • System integration by Enginuity Global

Benefits

  • Consolidated 12 applications running on six (6) servers to a single, fault-tolerant Stratus ftServer compute platform
  • Centralized monitor and control resulted in higher yield, improved safety, and no downtime for critical applications
  • Improved system response time by 1,000%, from more than 20 seconds to milliseconds