Vidya Technology delivers 4 R&D deep tech projects in partnership with Petrobras

Petrobras is a Brazilian multinational oil and gas corporation, being the largest oil producer in the Western Hemisphere and the 10th largest oil producer in the world. Committed to the development of innovative technologies for the Oil, Gas, and Energy sector they have multiple R&D programs, such as the Petrobras Connections for Innovation. Through this program, they promote a series of initiatives to enhance the integration with the innovation ecosystem. The projects listed below are the result of this collaboration between Petrobras and Vidya for the development of innovative technologies for the O&G sector.

 

Digital Approach for Process Safety Control and Process Intervention

 

The Oil and Gas sector operates in high-risk environments, making operational safety a top priority. Safety procedures, control processes, and technology tools are crucial for preventing accidents and protecting personnel, and the environment. The discipline responsible for Safety Management is composed of multiple processes, including:

• The hazard identification and risk assessment, which includes the use of Hazard and Operability Study (HAZOP) and preliminary risk analysis (PRA);
• The Identification and management of Safety Equipment and Systems;
• And finally, Intervention processes and all subsequent coordination of actions that those processes demand.

For those responsible for managing this, understanding the status of critical elements, barriers, factors from the preliminary risk analysis, and information related to Pressure Safety Valves (PSVs) is essential. This knowledge enables effective process intervention planning, which must also consider operational criteria like People on Board (PoB) Limitations and specific business rules. The main challenge lies in managing a large volume of data scattered across engineering documents, CMMS, SAP, and other data systems. This data can be conflicting and diffused, making accurate process intervention planning a time-consuming and demanding task.

The Process Safety application developed by Vidya supports the meticulous planning of
shutdowns and turnarounds, and the management of critical equipment for Petrobras. The Artificial Intelligence solution contextualizes procedures such as Preliminary Risk Analysis (PRA), Hazard Studies (HAZOP), Shutdown and Turnaround Operational Procedures and a List of Critical Elements into a 3D model. Therefore, instead of looking for hundreds of PDF pages, the risks, sequence of actions, process triggers, physical process sequencing, anomalies, or failures are available on the 3D with all the scenarios listed and visually animated.

During the project it was possible to validate the application implementing the solution for the shutdown/turnaround planning of an FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading) unit, focusing on solving risk assessment, emergency preparedness, and allocation of people on board (POB). For risk assessment and emergency preparedness, the shutdown scenarios are animated on the 3D model showing each step of the procedure and the description of the tasks, and if there’s any PRA or HAZOP associated with their details. For the POB allocation, filters enabled the quick identification of all of the activities that each team may have in a single module or area, resulting in less locomotion between the modules in the asset, optimizing PoB.

As key results from the project, Vidya was able to provide visual digital process intervention actions, providing the end user with outputs such as visual information to support their decision-making, alerts, and intervention recommendations.

• Digital visualization process intervention actions
• People on Board (PoB) allocation optimization
• Positive Impacts on Accidents Indexes
• Virtualization and Situational Awareness
• Reduction in on-field exposure from operators
• 75% Reduction in information retrieval time

 

The ASPA Project – AI-driven Asset Service Portfolio Automation

 

Thousands of service notes are generated for each offshore facility. To analyze and classify all of them into portfolios (the set of service notes) is an extensive activity, often depending on the empirical knowledge of the responsible worker. In addition, the data on the notes can be divergent, which can lead to inadequate scopes of activities.

The objective of this project was to develop an AI-driven solution able to:

• Optimize the process of setting integrity service portfolios for offshore units;
• Automatically classify the service notes into major maintenance, planned shutdowns, and minor tactical activities;
• Minimize potential production losses, expenses for work not carried, duplicated notes, and unplanned portfolio changes requests.

The ASPA (Asset Service Portfolio Automation) is an Artificial Intelligence solution developed by Vidya able to classify the service notes in the right portfolio. In practice, ASPA automatically classifies the service notes that require major maintenance, planned shutdowns, and minor activities based on the execution history and the manual input of data, creating prioritized portfolios and execution strategies aimed at minimizing production loss and/or cost, achieving:

• +15 years of database used to train the AI
• +40,000 notes processed
• >95% accuracy achieved on the AI model for note classification

 

Corrosion Probe & Datalogger EX – Hardware

 

The monitoring of internal corrosion is already a well-known issue for industries. With corrosion being responsible for most of the failures in industrial processes, many techniques and hardware are used to capture data on the level of corrosivity and degradation in pipes, guaranteeing the necessary information for the analysis of degradation and the need to design maintenance plans.

With this challenge, a combination of two hardware were developed and tested at Petrobras: Vidya Corrosion Sensor layer and Vidya ER probe. Both of them are used to measure the metal loss over time to calculate the corrosion rate. With high measurement resolution and data reliability, changes in the corrosion rate can be detected in a faster way. Some of the highlights of this approach are:

• Vidya Hardwares are projected and certified for use in potentially explosive atmospheres, with an intrinsically safety certification for areas classified as EX through the Inmetro (Ex ia IIC T4 Ga).
• Vidya was one of the first startup at the time to develop a project with ANP (National Agency of Petroleum) directly with CENPES (Research Center Leopoldo Américo Miguez de Mello) (without ICT – Institute of Science and Technology)

Vidya ER probes are corrosion sensors for the measurement of corrosion rates in processes, piping, vessels and equipment. It can be supplied with multiple configurations regarding the electrode, dimensions and mechanical characteristics. This is why it is highly adaptive to different applications.

Vidya IoT Data Logger is a modular data reader, collector and transmitter, built to deliver real-time data in hazardous areas. The device is designed with a layered architecture, which allows flexibility in the application, in the main features and the wireless transmission. Specifically designed to be multi-application, such as:

• Corrosion Monitoring
• Process Monitoring
• Environmental Monitoring

In summary, Vidya is at the forefront of developing cutting-edge deeptech solutions, spanning diverse disciplines including both hardware and software. With an experienced team on Research and Development projects, we are committed to solving complex industrial problems through innovative solutions for a more safe, sustainable, and efficient future.

 

About Petrobras

 

Petrobras is a Brazilian multinational oil and gas corporation, known for being the largest oil producer in the Western Hemisphere and the 10th largest oil producer in the world. Upholding a strong commitment to safety and environmental stewardship, their operations include all aspects of the oil and gas industry, from exploration and production to refining, transportation and hydroelectric, wind, and solar power generation.

 

About Vidya

 

Vidya Technology is a global oil and gas technology provider committed to supporting heavy-asset industries. Its mission is to make industrial operations more efficient, safe, autonomous, and sustainable. Vidya accomplishes this by joining engineering experience with the development of AI-driven solutions for Asset Integrity and Performance Management.

 

Media Contact

 

Janaina Albino
Business Development Representative, Vidya Technology
+55 (41) 3514-4980
sales@vidyatec.com