Operator Training Simulator for KG-D6 Field
Authors: Rastogi Ankur , Sharma Amit 
Published: May 2011

KG??D6 field is the first deepwater offshore gas field developed in India and is located in the Krishna Godavari Basin, Bay of Bengal off the East Coast of India. The gas field area expands over approximately 7,645 square kilometers and the northern boundary is about 40km to 60km south east of shore. The block lies in water depths of between 400 meters in the north-west, to over 2700 meters in the south east. The KG??D6 development consisted of 18 sub-sea wells connected to 6 sub-sea manifolds. Production from the manifolds is routed to the Deepwater Pipe Line End Manifold (DWPLEM) via 6 in-field pipelines. Two 24?? pipelines route the production flow from the DWPLEM to the Control and Riser Platform (CRP), which is located in approximately 100 meters water depth. Three 24?? pipelines carry the production from the CRP to the Onshore Terminal (OT).

The high-complexity of the KG-D6 Gas field required a more effective training system for the shift-leaders and operators. Before Start up, KG-D6 Operator Training Simulator was built using Stimulated Control configuration as in real plant, 11 Safety System PLC files (Logic solvers), multiple Historians & approximately 31,000 IO connections all integrated with a high fidelity process model. The process model is built using 11 Subsea multiphase flowline simulator models, integrated together with Dynamic Simulation model for CRP topside and OT, all built on a P&ID by P&ID basis. The Simulator uses actual DCS graphics for Operator stations.

Operator Training Simulator (OTS) developed presented operational information in a similar form to that on the actual facility and provided operational personnel with extensive operational experience and training on scenarios as may be faced in actual facility, prior to and subsequent to plant start-up. This also proved to be an effective tool to perform Control System Check out during pre-commissioning stage, well before actual start up. Input and output points were connected one at a time to the dynamically running process. Process was shutdown, inventories zeroed and the process started up from cold shut-in conditions. This start-up was, in essence, the first time integrated commissioning of the entire process, control system and logic. Process engineers were consulted to verify anticipated start-up rate and conditions. Thus a "virtual" debugging of the process was performed. The OTS gave operators a feel of the Process Dynamics, Process Control, and Safety System & familiarity to DCS Graphics well before start up.

Operator training to operate KG-D6 through Distributed Control System was carried out using OTS and this contributed to the high level of confidence building which is reflected in one of the most successful start-up of facility. KG-D6 OTS was used to train Subsea Operations which was a challenging territory and helped in development of operating skills on a "forgiving" system (mistakes taught out in simulator versus real life). OTS was also used to validate Standard Operating Procedures before actual facility start-up. Since actual operating procedures were used for training, personnel were able to test and update the operating procedures to match actual sequences, process response etc., before the actual facility startup. The simulator is an outstanding training tool that can be used during the life of the project to train operators for various operating scenarios and develop guidelines to handle emergency scenarios.