Environmental Services Example: Emissions Monitoring For Terminal Operations On Gulf Coast

 
 

The preeminent terminal facility on the gulf coast has storage and transshipment facilities for a wide range of chemicals including hazardous and regulated products like propylene, butene-1, butadiene, raffinate, and others. 

Extensive regulatory policies from federal and state agencies dictate detailed reporting of emissions released from this facility.  Emission products including HRVOCs during atmospheric releases and residual flaring, NOX , CO2 , flare and thermal oxidizer status and other system state parameters had to be available for audit be government representatives. 

Additionally, thousands of devices whose individual operation were critical to the operation of the system had to be continuously monitored.  Tank levels and product moves were tracked. 
Previously, several years of effort to produce a functional monitoring solution had not been successful.  EnterpriseSMS® architecture and technology was able to provide a highly verified solution.  This solution now provides real-time emissions monitoring and status reporting including derived emissions totals for regulatory compliance reporting that must be 100% auditable.

To achieve this, the system handled six million emissions monitoring transactions that were calibrated and stored daily.  Potential emission events are reported within 1 second or less.  The system opera tore utilize extensive graphical displays to show the state of the facilities systems graphically. 

After deployment, the system demonstrated its ability to reports potential emission events in time to prevent atmospheric releases and to provide the detailed reporting required by State and Federal regulatory agencies. 

The system includes:

 

System Scale:

 
      • Size:  The facility covers 265 acres with 215 tanks, 15 docks handling
 
      • Volume: The facility annually handles:
 
  • 750 ships,
  • 3,000 barges,
  • 12,000 tank cars, and
  • 24,000 tank trucks. 
  • Multiple pipelines
 
      • Storage Capacity: At any time it will have 10,600,000 barrels of product on hand.
 
      • Monitored System Components:
  • 5000+ monitored points
  • Nine flares and thermal oxidizers
  • 18 PLCs (SLC 500s)
  • Multiple chillers, Panametric gas flow and molecular weight, and other site specific instrumentation components.
  • Thousands of valves, pumps, condensers, tank level systems and other sensors.
 

Intrusion Detection and Facility Condition Monitoring:   

    Intrusion detection and monitoring of many sensors that monitor many aspects of each tank, flare, or other process system are a part of the solution.  Many building functions are also controlled through this system.  Critical parts of the IT infrastructure are also monitored.

Multiple Command Stations: 

    Multiple command stations operated in parallel.  They provide redundant control over the system.  These station utilize powerful graphic displays that detail the operation of the system.

External System Integration: 

                  Multiple distributed subsystems are integrated to provide a comprehensive solution for plant and emissions monitoring.