Order Reprints
Innovative Handling Of
Telemetry Enhances Gas System
Automation
Brazilian Utility Extends Application
To Custody Transfer Function
etrobras Distribuidora (Petroleo
Brasileiro) — the gas distribution
company in the state of Espirito
Santo, Brazil — recently innovatively
extended the traditional application of teleme-
try by using GPRS (General Packet Radio
Service). Although telemetry is widely known
and used in industrial applications by means
of leased lines, private lines, radio networks
and even satellite communication, its applica-
tion in natural gas custody transfer has been
pioneered by this installation.
The telemetry system is being used for the
automation of the natural gas distribution sys-
tem. This automation system integrates all the
information and enables Petrobras to have
more control, trust and safety in its activities.
Until the installation of the automation sys-
tem, all the required information for monitoring
and custody was acquired by daily employee
visits to the units. The acquired data were stored
in a notebook and updated in the corporate net-
working computers at the end of the day.
Gas Distribution System In State Of
Espirito Santo. The Lagoa Parda and Gasvit
pipelines supply the metropolitan area of
Vitoria City comprising 22 industrial plants,
16 gas stations, 1,187 houses and 28 commer-
cial places. The gas distribution system in this
state is composed of the following units:

40 natural gas meter stations. In each nat-
ural gas meter station there is a flow comput-
er that measures pressure, temperature, and
flow of gas. Using an algorithm of AGA-3,
AGA-7, AGA-8 it calculates the gas con-
sumption. In addition to the pressure, temper-
ature and quantity of gas, in some natural gas
meter stations other measurements are regis-
tered such as the upstream pressure of gas
Pipeline & Gas Journal / November 2005 / www.pipelineandgasjournal.com
by Aldo Rosa, C&P Instrumentacao e
pipeline and condensation vessel level. These
measurements are acquired by flow computer
through analog input.

Four subway pressure regulator stations.
In each subway pressure regulator station a
Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) was installed
for the monitoring of the filter differential
pressure, shut-off valves status and the leak-
age gas detection by infrared sensors.

Five cathodic protection systems. In each
cathodic protection system an RTU was
installed to monitor the voltage and current in
the most important places along the pipeline.

One chromatograph and one oxygen ana-
lyzer. The chromatograph and the oxygen ana-
lyzer communicate with the RTU through the
Modbus protocol. The gas analysis result is sent
to the control room and after its validation it is
sent to the correction of the flow computer.

One Gas Odorizing System. In this sta-
tion natural gas is odorized. This station com-
municates with one RTU through Modbus for
monitoring and dosing control.
Automation System Architecture. The con-
trol room was planned to monitor the entire
natural gas pipeline. A second step was
planned to implement remote control through
Permission to Copy
Controle S/C Ltda, São Paulo, Brazil
the control of the shut-off valves.
To accomplish this, five operating stations
based on Supervisory Control And
Acquisition (SCADA) and data historian soft-
ware were installed that — in addition to col-
lecting and storing data — makes the inter-
face with the corporate network. The opera-
tional system used is the Microsoft Windows
2003. An Ethernet TCP/IP LAN was installed
to communicate to and from the operating sta-
tion to the corporate network of Petrobras
Distribuidora.
Telemetry Definition. The first stage of
telemetry implementation was the definition
of the variables to be transmitted. In addition
to the variables acquired by flow computer
such as pressure, temperature, gas flow, con-
densate vessel level, pipeline pressure and gas
chromatograph, the audit and log files trans-
mission stored in the last 35 days were cho-
sen. Because these files are stored in different
format, they can’t be transmitted by means of
market- standard protocols.
After a research to define which market
protocol would satisfy these requirements,
Modbus Enron was chosen because it has all
the data transmission capabilities that are nec-

essary and it is widely used by big transport
and gas distribution companies in several
countries.
Up to that point, all the choices were strict-
ly technical to guarantee the system would
work as expected. The field instruments,
either the flow computer or the measurement
instruments for pressure, temperature and
level, are well known and there was no diffi-
culty in installation and operation. The same
is true of the SCADA and Historian software
which is widely used in the industrial field.
When the process of definition of the com-
munication medium was started, other vari-
ables had to be analyzed, and the definition of
real time of the process was critical in this
phase. Some units needed continuous moni-
toring (24/7) while the others could be moni-
tored less frequently. This affects the costs of
implementation and maintenance of the data
transmission system that should be considered
to calculate the pay back. For this system, sev-
eral alternatives were studied.
One alternative was a hybrid system with
the transmission through the dial-up line and
leased line. This system has the advantage of
being the most traditional and widely used
method of transmission. As a disadvantage,
this transmission method presents high mple-
mentation costs due to the large number of
modems required in the field and in the con-
trol room in addition to the high cost of main-
tenance and the difficulties due to the tele-
phone lines installed in some units. These fac-
tors made this alternative impractical.
Radio Modem. This communication medi-
um has the advantages of being well known
and demanding low maintenance. However,
the implementation cost is high due to the cost
of radios and the installation, plus the difficul-
ties of installation of the transmission towers
and transmission, once the several units are
located in the far wing of the control room.
Mobile Modem. This was the most chal-
lenging and attractive option due to its technol-
ogy. An analysis of the benefits and costs
demonstrated it to be the best alternative. The
initial cost of this installation is less compared
to other alternatives. The price of the mobile
modem is compatible with dialed-line modems
and less than the radio modem. The utilization
cost is billed by packet and not based on the
time connected. This makes the cost very low,
about US$3 for each MB transmitted. For each
unit, the forecast is to transmit about 20 MB
Pipeline & Gas Journal / November 2005 / www.pipelineandgasjournal.com
per month being always
connected.
GPRS Technology.
The GPRS (General
Packet Radio Service)
technology, known as
2.5G (Two and a half
generation of mobile
communication) inte-
grates a new concept in
sharing the same
wavewidth of GSM net-
work. It uses data trans-
mission by IP-oriented protocol packages.
Communications through the GSM system
uses circuit commutation technology. While a
transmission is done by circuit commutation,
network equipment remains busy during the
transmission and billing is determined based
on time used.
Communication through GPRS system
uses data communication technology. In this
case, several users share communication
channels and one user has a channel opened
just when there is a data transmission. The
advantages of GPRS technology compared to
GSM are:

Simultaneous transmission of voice and
data in the same channel.

Wide coverage in all the units.

Quick and permanent access of data.

With GSM technology, it takes 15-30 sec-
onds to make a connection to the network and
this time is required for each new connection. In
the GPRS system, once the connection is done,
it will remain permanently active.

Significant increase in data transmission
speed.

By means of GSM network, the speed
can reach 9.6 kbps. GPRS offers speeds that
vary from 40-144 kbps.

Uses a popular X.25 and IP protocol.

Many telephone operating systems and dif-
ferent cellular modems can be used, leading to
flexible and independent choices in the market.

Cost saving.

In the GSM technology, billing depends
on the time of connection. In the GPRS sys-
tem, billing depends on the amount of trans-
mitted data.
GPRS cellular modems can be classified in
three different types:

Class A: simultaneous transmission of
voice and data.

Class B: transmission of voice and data,
not simultaneous.

Class C: exclusively for data transmission.
Telemetry Installation
After the choice of a data transmission sys-
tem was made, tests were done to certify the
introduction. Working meetings were pro-
grammed with fixed and mobile telephony
companies. The technology tested was GSM
(Global System for Mobile Communication)
with GPRS (General Packet Radio System).
In the control room a link was installed
with static IP 128 kbps redundancy by a fixed
telephony company. This link is connected to
the Ethernet network by a router.
Flow computers are set to sleep most of the
time to save energy, as long as their batteries
have low storage capacity. In this application
the flow computers were programmed to work
continuously (always on) and their supply was
switched to solar energy as mobile phones.
Mobile modem communicates with flow
computers through a serial port RS232 Enron
Modbus protocol and it connects in the net-
work IP of the mobile phone operator as soon
as the same gets energy.
When it connects in the network IP, the
mobile phone operator gives an IP number to
the mobile modem that becomes its identifica-
tion in the networking. This mobile, after hav-
ing connected and received its IP number,
searches for the IP number of that control room.
The biggest difficulty encountered con-
cerned the IP number because it is dynamic,
and the software SCADA was unable to identi-
fy it. It was necessary to develop a correlation
list between the identification of each mobile,
the dynamic IP and an IP that is not valid and
registered in the SCADA software. This list was
loaded in every station and initiated with the
SCADA software. It remains constantly active.
This overcame the difficulty.
Conclusion
With this project, Petrobras Distribuidora
demonstrated again that it is a pioneer in
using new technologies. To define which
would be a better choice for the natural gas
distribution system in the Espirito Santo
State, new technologies were evaluated. A
technology was chosen that—in addition to
presenting innovation benefits—complied
with the security rules.Petrobras achieved:

Cost reduction: workers do not need to
move to the units to make the acquisition station.

Security: all of the gas distribution sys-
tem is checked continuously (on line) which
allows a fast response in case of an alarm.

The data are sent by tunneling protocol
(GTP – GPRS Tunneling Protocol) increasing
the communication security.

Optimization: all acquired data will be
sent to a corporate network for integration
(billing, call center, operations and mainte-
nance) in an automated way without the need
to file manual reports.

Simplification: once the data network
uses TCP/IP protocol, the entire automation
structure can be utilized and improved.

The transmission network can be
installed in thousands of units (up to 65,000).

The maintenance and operation staffs were
technically trained and benefited from learning
how to use this innovative technology. P&GJ
Author: Aldo Rosa, automation engineer, is
General Director of C&P Instrumentacao e
Controle SC Ltda, a Brazil-based automation
consulting company. He developed the
Pioneer Project in Brazil using GPRS
Technology in the BR Distribuidora. He can
be reached at cpic@cpic.com.br.