OG90
Course Contents
Module 1: Advanced Process Control Foundations in Gas Processing
Key Topics
- Evolution of process control: regulatory PID loops, feedforward blocks and multivariable systems
- Economic incentives for APC: reducing process variability, saving energy and pushing constraints
- Characteristics of gas plant operations: multivariable interactions, long time delays and dead times
- Definition of terms: Controlled Variables (CVs), Manipulated Variables (MVs) and Disturbance Variables (DVs)
- Architecture of Model Predictive Control (MPC): prediction horizon, control horizon and cost functions
- Overview of industrial MPC packages, software interfaces and layering with real-time optimization
- Formulating the technical project scope, operational baselines and business value justification
Module 2: Control Readiness, Base-Layer Evaluation and System Scoping
Key Topics
- Auditing the base layer: assessing regulatory PID loop health, valve performance and sensor noise
- Impact of control valve problems: stiction, deadband, hysteresis and poor tuning on APC layers
- Instrument reliability: analyser response delays, calibration tracking and measurement availability
- Mapping cause-and-effect relationships and building initial process interaction matrices
- Assessing data infrastructure: historian connectivity, data sampling rates and signal transmission limits
- Scoping an APC project: identifying process bottlenecks, physical constraints and operating envelopes
- Human factors: evaluating operator readiness, control room graphics and console intervention rules
Module 3: APC Applications in Gas Treating and NGL Recovery
Key Topics
- Amine treating control: managing solvent circulation rates, reboiler heat duties and acid gas specs
- Glycol dehydration control: optimizing regeneration temperatures, circulation loops and dew-point tracking
- Refrigeration loops and cryogenic turboexpander systems: managing chiller duties and expander constraints
- Demethaniser column MPC design: balancing methane slip against ethane recovery or rejection modes
- Fractionation trains: deethaniser, depropaniser and debutaniser product composition and reflux control
- Compressor load sharing, antisurge margin management, suction pressure control and energy minimization
- Dynamic constraint handling during feed gas flow changes, composition shifts and ambient temperature swings
Module 4: MPC Design, Step Testing and Controller Commissioning
Key Topics
- Step-testing methodologies: planning plant trials, pseudo-random binary sequences and open-loop testing
- Data collection and processing: filtering plant noise, removing outliers and identifying dynamic models
- Dynamic model identification: converting step responses into transfer functions and step matrices
- Configuring the controller matrix: selecting weights, tuning move suppression and setting constraint priorities
- Operator interface design: building APC dashboards, sub-status flags, drop-out parameters and alerts
- Simulation testing: validating controller robustness using model-in-the-loop and software-in-the-loop tools
- Commissioning workflows: shadow mode tracking, loop-by-loop cutover, loop closure and performance tuning
Module 5: Optimisation, Sustainment and APC Governance
Key Topics
- Integrating real-time optimization (RTO) layers with MPC via linear or non-linear objective functions
- Energy conservation: tracking fuel reductions, steam balance optimization and flaring mitigation
- Performance tracking: establishing controller service factors, constraint utilization KPIs and benefit audits
- Managing model degradation: detecting model mismatch, identifying plant drift and run-time retuning
- Routine maintenance workflows: scheduling periodic step tests, model re-identification and patch validation
- APC governance frameworks: defining ownership, performance reporting and management of change (MOC)
- Cybersecurity considerations: secure data links, role-based access control and protecting the control layer