Off the shelf software for pipelines
Feature Articles, Dec  04  2009 (Digital Energy Journal)

- Californina company CygNet believes that long distance gas pipeline operators could update their operations software much faster, if it was available off the shelf rather than custom built – and they have created a product to do it

CygNet, a company based in San Luis Obispo, Califonia, believes that long distance pipeline operators would be much better off using off the shelf software, rather than custom made software, as most of them currently do.

The company has developed what it claims is the first ever off the shelf complete software solution for long distance gas pipelines, called CygNet for Pipeline.

The software can manage all the data from pipeline sensors such as pressure, flowrate and gas quality (SCADA), and process it so people only see the information they need. The software can also manage transactional companaants to support the accounting involved, and help companies balance inflows and outflows, so they deliver enough gas into the pipe to meet end users’ needs without letting gas build up by increasing the pressure inside the pipeline.

Normally, pipeline companies have software specially written, a task which is very expensive and can take about 18 months.

Because it is “off the shelf” not custom made, the CygNet software can be installed in just 66 days, the company says. it is already fully tested and able to communicate with all standard field devices – and it is very easy to implement software upgrades.

With conventional custom built software, it can be as much trouble upgrading the software as it is installing completely new software, says Steve Robb, Vice President of Business Development with CygNet.

Most of the other companies in the field see their task as selling services, not software, he says, so they have an incentive to take as much time doing it as possible. “We compete on the basis that we can be installed faster, with a higher degree of quality, with functional compliance, in half the time,” he says.

In one recent request for proposal, CygNet put together two options - install a system in the traditional fashion (taking 18 months with custom software), or it could use the software off the shelf, doing the job 6 months faster and $560,000 cheaper.

In another price quote, it was asked to help a company install new software on a pipeline asset it had acquired from another company. The usual practice when pipeline systems are sold is that the divesting company will continue to operate it while the purchasing company installs a new software system, a process which typically takes around 14 months. “We were able to get them operational in 3 months at less than half the cost,” he said.

The off the shelf software should also be more robust and easier to install than custom software – which means that companies are more likely to be able to do it themselves rather than ask software company staff to install it. This is very important to oil and gas companies, Mr Robb says.

It is true that many gas pipelines have specific demands from software which cannot be met immediately by off the shelf software. However around 80 per cent of the needs are exactly the same, the company estimates. This means that it should be possible to use off the shelf software – either managing without the other 20 per cent, or making small customizations to achieve them.

CygNet puts its software through rigorous testing, with 100 automated tests happening every night while it is building code, including on 5 different Windows platforms – Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2008 server, Vista, XP and XP server, so it is likely to be more robust than custom software.

Users can also take advantage of the software tools CygNet has written to help manage the streams of data pipelines generate. The software organises it into a pre-configured and tested schema, including alarms, notifications and calculations.

Altogether CygNet produces software for a range of different oil and gas SCADA applications, gathering and managing data from plant, equipment and pipelines. Its largest customers process data streams from 11,000 locations. It has been in business for 15 years and focusing on the oil and gas industry for about half of that.

Its software is used on 15 per cent of North American oil and gas pipelines. The company has grown 30 per cent a year for the past 3 years.

It has a board of customer advisors, including Conoco Phillips, Southern Union Gas, Houston Pipeline, Anardarko, and Chesapeake. “These folks give us fantastic insight into what are the problems they are facing,” Mr Robb says.

Supply and demand

By having better information readily available, it should be easier for companies match the flow of gas into the pipeline with the flow out of the pipeline at the other end.

“In days gone by, pipeline companies would say, I have a certain capacity in the pipeline, I can pack the pressure up and put some inventory in it which will accommodate swings in the markets that I serve,” Mr Robb says.

But compressing gas is very expensive – if the demand can be satisfied with a more sophisticated / dynamic model that would be better.

“The market is moving towards real time adjustments in production,” he says. “People want to be able to produce in alignment with what’s being consumed.”

“The goal is to get the commodity delivery to the market with the most effective cost just in time to satisfy the demand, just like Fedex.”

Demand forecasting needs to happen on both ends of the pipeline. Exploration and production companies have to try to predict how much gas will be consumed and how much they can adjust production to provide that amount of gas. Gas distributors have to estimate how much their customers will need, and how much they should purchase (or “nominate”) from exploration and production companies.

Communications

The software is already designed so it can already communicate with all known field devices, including Allen Bradly, Bristol, Control Microsystems and Emerson.

One customer, in the process of choosing software, put all the rival software companies together in a competition and said it would give the contract to whichever software company could connect up to its field equipment fastest.

Because the CygNet software is already able to communicate with most field equipment, “we could do it in 90 minutes from scratch, including installing the software,” Mr Robb says. “Some of our competitors took up to a week just to install the software.”

The company is currently developing standard interfaces between the software and standard corporate systems for billing and accounting. “We’re creating standard service gateways to the rest of the organisation,” he says.

Cygnet Scada

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