FieldComm Group announced that Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemical Limited (MRPL), located in Mangalore, India, has been named the FieldComm Group 2018 Plant of the Year. This annual award is presented by FieldComm Group to recognize the people, companies and plant sites around the globe that are using the advanced capabilities of FOUNDATION Fieldbus, HART and WirelessHART technology in real-time applications for improved operations, maintenance and asset productivity.
This is the first time that a process facility located in India has been granted this prestigious award, illustrating India’s (and specifically MRPL’s) growing strength in the world market.
The culture of “doing things better” has been an integral part of MRPL, and close coordination between the many disciplines (C&I, Projects, Process Operations, etc.) has enabled them to be industry leaders in utilizing the information provided by smart devices, which has led them to be selected as the 2018 Plant of the Year.
"FOUNDATION Fieldbus technology provided a 50% savings with I/Os, cabling, maintenance utilization and installation costs when compared to conventional installations–saving $6,600,000 in project costs alone. In terms of maintenance, FF and HART provided on our instruments, valves and positioners provide an average savings of 55 man-days per month,” said B. Sudarshan, chief general manager of instrumentation & electrical at MRPL.
In addition to hard-cost savings in infrastructure and maintenance time, MRPL continues to receive savings in averted shutdowns and interruptions. In one instance where an unexpected shutdown would have occurred due to valve fault, valve-positioner diagnostics identified an issue that enabled MRPL to avoid shutting down hydrogen generation, saving $60,000 in startup/shutdown costs associated with fuel and energy loss.
Sudarshan continued, “Open standards have enabled us to derive value in many different scenarios throughout the entire plant. For example, HART is enabled in our Safety Systems that allow for Partial Stroke Testing–avoiding the necessity to completely shut down. Control in the Field provided by FOUNDATION Fieldbus allows MRPL to operate even in the event of critical hardware failure–giving our team peace of mind. In 2016, thanks to Control in the Field, we were able to keep our refinery processing running during a DCS upgrade that otherwise would have required a shutdown resulting in a production loss of $800,000.”
Speaking on the importance of open standards and device integration, Ted Masters, president & CEO FieldComm Group states, “End users will continue to use multiple communication protocols in their facilities to optimally address process automation use cases. The most adept users will also take advantage of smart data and the tremendous cost savings enabled through its use. MRPL is a great example of using smart data and we are grateful that they applied for and won this year’s FieldComm Group Plant of the Year Award.”
