The Hamble Oil Terminal on the banks of Southampton Water, UK, is the latest BP storage depot to complete a comprehensive upgrade of its valve actuation control systems. The work has been carried out by Rotork’s specialist Site Service Department. The actuators are now linked on two serial bus loops to new Pakscan IIE master stations installed in the site’s central control room. The second phase of work involved the five 28.5 million litre capacity tanks that store crude oil delivered from the Wytch Farm field through a 53 mile underground pipeline. This oil is stored at Hamble and exported by sea for refining. Ten “A” range actuators have been upgraded and linked to a new Pakscan IIS master station. The last part of the upgrade involved a further Pakscan loop on the sea jetty, controlling the import and export pump valves. All four Pakscan loops at BP Hamble interface directly with the Endress & Hauser PC-based Fuels Manager 2000 software that supervises the operation of site activities from the central control room.
