Yokogawa supports Shell with their Energy Transition

The Shell Skyline project contributes to the energy transition by reducing the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of the Shell Moerdijk site. The Yokogawa team in the Netherlands is proud to be the Industrial Automation partner for this project, which is of great importance for the energy transition towards net-zero emissions. Yokogawa is responsible for the delivery of the DCS control layer and the SIS safety system, using customized Remote IO boxes

10% reduction in CO2; how does Shell achieve that?
In the coming years Shell will replace sixteen old furnaces that were built in the early seventies with eight new, much more efficient furnaces. The total capacity will remain the same, but Shell will considerably reduce energy consumption at Moerdijk. The company will soon see this reflected especially in gas consumption. Because the more efficient furnaces require less fuel gas from the cracker, there is more of it left for the boiler house to produce steam. Moreover, the heat exchange improves, which means that less steam is needed from the boiler house as well. This will reduce Shell Moerdijk's CO2 emissions by around ten percent.

Status of the project

Project Manager Jan van Ee: ‘After going through a definition phase in which we determined the basic design philosophy in close cooperation with Shell, Fluor and Technip, a prototype of the Remote IO box (RIO box) was created. Both the Yokogawa Centum VP Distributed Control System and the ProSafe-RS SIS Safety System are based on a generically designed RIO box that will be installed in the field, close to the furnaces. They will be integrated into the already existing Yokogawa system at Shell Moerdijk.’

 

RIO box: super-efficient connection with Fibre Optics
By using RIO boxes, only a glass fibre connection to the system cabinets is needed. The RIO boxes are installed close to the field instruments, allowing them to be connected directly. This approach - compared to a conventional approach* - provides great advantages:

• better weight distribution around the instruments
• large savings on field cables and installation of field cables
• standardisation by using typical RIO box designs
• test capabilities at an early stage without software configuration.

Focus on the implementation

System Sales Engineering Derrick Gibbs: ‘We have recently started the project execution of the automation part, focusing first on the final design, construction and delivery of the required hardware for both DCS and SIS. Before proceeding with the production of the hardware, we will build a Typical RIO box for both DCS and SIS after which we will test it extensively based on an ATEX certification (zone 2 requirements). During this process we will start with the software part for the integrated Yokogawa DCS/SIS System.’

 

Video Shell Skyline project
Watch the video from Shell about their investment in new furnaces to reduce emissions from its Moerdijk Chemicals plant:

More information Shell Moerdijk Skyline project
For more information, visit the Shell website

* In a conventional approach, there would be multicore field cables laying in the ground from the System cabinets (equipped with DCS and/or SIS controllers) in a building to a junction box in the field, and from there again to other junction boxes or maybe directly to the Field equipment.