Patent ID: 7890200
Filing Date: 2011-02-15
Classification: G05B,Y10T

Abstract:
1. A process control system for use in controlling an operation of an oil/gas field which comprises a plurality of wells and has a plurality of process variables, comprising: an event identification module for testing process variables from within a data set against predetermined criteria to identify one or more events, wherein each event is a condition relating to one or more process variables for the oil/gas field and at least one event represents a continuous time period during which one or more process variables satisfy a predetermined criteria, with the at least one event having an assigned start and end times; an event association module which is operative, for each identified event, to determine whether the event is a cause event or an effect event, and to determine an association with one or more other events as effect events or cause events; and an event control module operative to log, from the oil/gas field, one or more process variables attributed to the one or more events, and to provide a control indication in response to each identified event, wherein the control indication identifies the event as one of a cause event or an effect event and identifies the one or more events associated with the identified event as effect events for the identified event being a cause event or as cause events for the identified event being an effect event; and wherein the event association module is operative to estimate a time period between the identified event and one or more of the events associated with the identified event.