RIL eyes big cost savings from new tech at Jamnagar

Reliance Industries, which runs the largest refinery complex in the country at Jamnagar, is close to implementing a new process automation technology that promises to rein in maintenance costs, prevent unplanned shutdowns and improve off-site operations.

RIL will be the first in India and only second in the world after Brazilian Petrobras to embrace the technology known as Foundation for Remote Operations Management (F-ROM), Richard Timoney, president and CEO of Fieldbus Foundation, told dna at the Automation Conference here. Fieldbus Foundation is the one which has developed the F-ROM technology. 

“We will have live field demonstration of F-ROM at Reliance Industries in Jamnagar in February 2014,” Timoney said.

F-ROM technology would essentially aid Reliance Industries to manage wireless devices such as pressure transmitters, flow meters, temperature meters across its tank farms and terminals, pipelines, and offshore platforms through a unified digital infrastructure.

Although Timoney did not put a figure to exact savings, he claimed that these could be across the life cycle of a refinery plant. “In the design and engineering phase, we have seen 10-15% savings, we have seen up to a 40% decrease in costs associated with commissioning of the plant. During the life of a plant, there could be 20-30% cost savings due to maintenance reduction, elimination of unplanned shutdowns, which are a huge cost for an operating plant,” Timoney pointed out.

An analyst from a domestic brokerage is not on the same page.

He is of the view that while the technology may help straighten process flows, it may not really have any significant impact on gross refinery margins.

Process industries like refineries, pharmaceutical, food processing, metal and mining use several wireless and wireline devices and technologies on their shop floors. These wireless devices use different protocols and are often difficult to integrate.

Companies spend a lot of money on custom integration and making applications staying in sync. The implementation of F-ROM, Timoney said, would spare the conglomerate from all these hassles and costs.

Fieldbus Foundation is a not-for-profit trade consortium representing major process automation industry suppliers and end users, including oil & gas, power and metal firms.