India refiner touts Honeywell wireless technology in FCC expansion
Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) has implemented wireless mobile stations from Honeywell Process Solutions as part of its $200mn fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) project at its Mumbai refinery, officials said on Thursday.
The mobile stations increase productivity and reduce operating costs of standard communication infrastructure by expediting the commissioning of different systems and subsystems, the companies said.
HPCL is a Fortune 500 company with annual revenues in excess of $25 billion. The company operates two major refineries in India which produce a wide variety of petroleum fuels with a combined annual output of 14.8 million metric tons.
Previously, HPCL experienced delays in commissioning activity associated with the use of handheld transceivers to communicate with the control room for operations such as transmitter testing, control valve stroke checking, loop checking, determining run indication status and mapping third party devices with DCS over modbus, Honeywell said.
Following the deployment of Honeywell’s wireless mobile operator technology, HPCL was able to expedite the schedule, thereby saving about $333,000/ day and improving productivity by 20% during the commissioning phase of the project, officials said.
The company has also enjoyed increased acceptance of more field-related applications using the same wireless network, it said.
“Effective communications are essential in helping to minimize the commissioning delays and in turn reduce operating costs in our plants,” said a senior representative at the HPCL Mahul refinery.
“Our longstanding relationship with Honeywell made the company a natural choice for this project, and the substantial cost reductions achieved to date have shown that they were the correct choice.”
“Increasingly our customers are interested in taking advantage of the latest communications technologies for their operations,” said Amitava Biswas, country manager for Honeywell Process Solutions India.
“With our Mobile EPKS system, Hindustan Petroleum gains real-time communication, which is a critical capability when optimizing plant productivity and managing the bottom line.”
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