KBC Releases Petro-SIM® and Petro-SIM Integrator for the PI System® to Accelerate Digitalization Across The Oil and Gas Industry

KBC (a Yokogawa Company) and OSIsoft LLC, a leader in operational intelligence, today announced the Petro-SIM Integrator for the PI System. Petro-SIM 7 is also being released today to accelerate the industry’s ability to drive business off a single source of truth.

Oil and gas companies are investing in tools and initiatives to turn data into better real-time operational decisions and predictive models. This involves figuring out how to incorporate predictive insights back into production processes, leveraging available data and process simulation models. The Petro-SIM Integrator for the PI System addresses this challenge by driving enterprise-wide convergence in comprehension and unity in decision making and action. Petro-SIM 7, the Petro-SIM Integrator for the PI System, and the PI System will provide a single source of the truth across the fullstream for how molecules and operating conditions are behaving, at a unit and asset-wide level. It will deliver significantly enhanced quality and richness of actionable insight into production activities.

The Petro-SIM Integrator for the PI System is configured in a way that enables everyone to see inside and perceive things that are not being directly measured. High quality and accurate predictions are instantly available and run in a consistent way that everyone can understand and agree on. The Integrator enables automated creation of PI Asset Framework (PI AF) templates within the PI System from Petro-SIM and automated update of the PI AF template if the Petro-SIM model changes. Asset Framework is a component of the PI System that structures and contextualizes operational data for real-time decision making. The Petro-SIM Integrator enables automated population of the Petro-SIM model with current PI System data and automated population of the PI System with Petro-SIM outputs. Any changes to a PI Tag - a data point or stream tracked within the PI System - trigger automatic notification to Petro-SIM. 

Automated calculation of unit performance analytics will allow “What if?” and “What's best?” scenarios to be run automatically to determine available strategies that maximize profitability. 

All outputs of Petro-SIM's models are automatically written back into the PI System, in real-time, thereby significantly enhancing the quality and richness of data in the PI System. This includes comparison of Measured vs Simulation Model vs Linear Programming (LP) Model outputs to help track when models and actual plant performance diverge. Other parameters also include, but are not limited to, temperatures, pressures, flows, densities, viscosities, stream characterization of feeds and products, catalyst activity and run length projections, catalyst circulation rates and heat exchanger / fired heater fouling. In turn, a higher fidelity record of operations in the PI System will help drive smarter decisions across the enterprise by bringing Petro-SIM insights to PI Vision dashboards and other systems integrated with the PI System. For example, the Petro-SIM Integrator enables drill-down into Petro-SIM models from PI Vision.

For over a decade, Petro-SIM has been applying in-depth physics and chemistry to real-time production data to drive business decisions for production management and supply chain optimization activities.

The development of the Petro-SIM Integrator for the PI System builds on KBC's unique 20-year history with OSIsoft. Since 2000, KBC, through recently-acquired Industrial Evolution Inc., has been a pioneer in the application of the Cloud and IT Services, through a hosted PI System at a secure KBC data centre, allowing companies to share data in real-time beyond their corporate boundaries. KBC's parent company, Yokogawa, has also been a valued-added reseller for OSIsoft for a number of years. 

“Select oil and gas customers have already been deploying the Petro-SIM PI System Integrator in downstream facilities. They've told us how surprised they are at the ease of technical integration between these two market-leading platforms,” said Andy Howell, CEO of KBC. “By collaborating, we are enabling industry to derive rich, previously unobtainable, operational insight from data already collected to boost the quality of decision-making. The result being safer, more reliable and more profitable operations.

“Operational data will fundamentally change oil and gas over the next decade. People still underestimate the impact we see coming with new digital technologies,” said J. Patrick Kennedy, CEO and founder of OSIsoft. “We're very excited to work with KBC to build a foundation for new ideas in the energy industry.  

About Petro-SIM

Petro-SIM is a process simulator that brings together data and science through a digital framework that is not just scalable but also readily accessible to give people the ability to solve the right problems in real time without abandoning the fidelity and accuracy of the solution. It gives users the ability to create models that reflect a continuously changing reality so they can troubleshoot today's problems and optimize for tomorrow. With Petro-SIM 7 we invite you to Embrace the Science, Empower your People and Enter Digital with us.  

About KBC

KBC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yokogawa Electric Corporation, is all about excellence in the Energy and Chemical industry. We make excellence real for our customers through the actions of our people fused with our technology and best practices. We provide leading software and expert services, powered by the cloud, to assure process operations achieve their full potential. Our customers achieve operating performance that surpasses ordinary standards, now and into the future. For more information, visit www.kbc.global.