OPC UA – Bridging the Gap from the Sensor to the Cloud and Back
Johan Sverdrup oil rig in the North Sea is entirely OPC UA compatible
The Johan Sverdrup oil deposit is 1,900 meters deep and is said to hold up to 480 million cubic meters. Every day, 550,000 barrels of oil are transported via pipeline. Extraction is planned up to 2050.
Secure, uniform and standardized protocol and data semantics – A method for accessing operational data from all assets of the Johan Sverdrup oil rig.
More than 190,000 Connected Data Points with OPC UA
In 2014, representatives of Equinor ASA, the Norwegian energy company, got in touch with the OPC Foundation for the first time. Today – after 7 years – the entire oil drilling platform Johan Sverdrup in the North Sea is entirely OPC UA compatible. Continuous and secure communication from the sensor to the Azure cloud is guaranteed. More than 190,000 data points are connected. The OPC UA asset structure contains more than 31,000 pieces of equipment and more than one million items and references.
The number of connected data points will increase to at least 500,000 – possibly up to one million. With the help of sensor technology, a digital twin maps the virtual real-time version of the entire plant. The benefits: Increased safety and efficiency as well as reduced workload for employees. Close collaboration between offshore and onshore platforms and staff is ensured.
The use of a cloud-based data platform guarantees access to ever larger volumes of data. Both internal staff and suppliers can work with this data and create and test machine learning algorithms. More than 350,000 documents are digitally processed to speed up and simplify maintenance work.
Read also: Strategies for Data-Driven Digital Transformation in the Plant.
