The Gunvor refinery in Ingolstadt, Germany underwent a modernization project of its tanker truck loading facilities. The old loading gantries and control systems, some over 25 years old, were in need of replacement. Actemium was selected to complete the project and designed a new modular control system using ViewStar ICS TAS to ensure safe, efficient and environmentally friendly operations. Special distributed systems were used and field equipment is connected via fiber optic cables for improved safety. New flow computers were also installed to precisely measure product volumes during custody transfers. The project is currently on schedule with most systems expected to be modernized by the end of 2016.

1. OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2016 VOLUME 12 ISSUE NO.548
TECHNICAL FEATURES l CUSTODY TRANSFER
Actemium renovates tanker truck loading station at the
Gunvor-Raffinerie Ingolstadt refinery
I
n 2015, more than 102 million tonnes of crude oil
were processed at refineries in Germany.
Part of this was handled at the Gunvor refinery
in the heart of Bavaria, which is undergoing a
significant modernisation project on its tanker
truck loading facilities to ensure smooth, efficient,
environmentally friendly operations at the Ingolstadt
depot well into the future.
The Gunvor refinery has a processing capacity of
around five million tonnes of crude oil per year. It is
one of the most energy-efficient refineries in its class
in Europe. After distillation, cracking and refining,
the final products are loaded into tanker trucks at
loading gantries. The facility has a total of ten loading
gantries, but the equipment is more than 25-years old
and modernisation was urgently needed.
In addition to cabling, the electrical enclosures
and junction boxes needed to be replaced, along
with the loading controllers, the measurement
equipment for custody transfer, and the control and
monitoring system.
The refinery received active support from
Actemium, which has significant experience with
automation and control systems, pipelines, storage
tanks, tank farms, and tank inspections to bear on
the project in order to complete it successfully.
FLEXIBLE CONTROLS
Tank systems are highly sensitive, as they work with
highly inflammable media. Both teams gave safety
the highest priority throughout the entire cycle, from
planning to implementation to maintenance and
repairs. The solutions also needed to be efficient and
environmentally friendly. In order to meet all of these
requirements, Actemium created a design solution
based on the ViewStar ICS TAS modular control
system.
In addition to traditional SCADA1
functions such
as operator controls and monitoring, the system
provides specific functionalities for controlling and
monitoring of loading stations. Powerful industrial
PCs with Soft PLC2
form the control interface and
they are programmed with the CoDeSys3
tool,
widely used in industrial automation, which conforms to international
standard IEC 61131-3. This standard allows the system to run on other
devices without a problem – a long-term investment that means Gunvor
is not dependent on any manufacturer.
EFFICIENCYAND SAFETY IN EXPLOSIVE ZONES
Holger Schneider, system engineer at Actemium Oil & Gas and
Environmental Solutions, says: ‘A tanker truck with a trailer can hold up
to 30,000 litres. This illustrates the great responsibility involved in such
a project. Right from the start, we wanted to combine the safety aspect
with performance and efficiency, but also be conscious of costs.’
Special distributed peripheral systems consisting of modular
fieldbus-independent I/O systems were used for the automation. The
system supports all common fieldbus systems and has various special-
ised functions, achieving a high level of flexibility.
To connect the distribution station and the loading gantries, the field
equipment on the loading gantries were wired only to sub-distribu-
tion-units. A FO4
converter processes the signals from there and then
transmits them via a single fibre-optic cable to the control system in
the distribution station. This saves hundreds of metres of wiring and
will also improve safety, because FO cables never emit sparks or cause
electrical fires.
BRINGING THE FUTURE
TO THE TANKER TRUCK
01 Working on
the electrical
enclosures
02 Gaining
insight into
the renovating
process at the
Gunvor refinery
Pictures courtesy
of Actemium
01

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TECHNICAL FEATURES l CUSTODY TRANSFER
MAXIMUM MEASUREMENTACCURACY
The volume of mineral oil products is always determined relative to a
temperature of 15˚C therefore the custody transfer solution must very
closely observe the specification. To this end, Actemium FIcNET flow
computers were installed to perform the most accurate calculations.
The volume computed and calibrated by the computer and the weight
are both important for precise billing to the recipient of the product. The
values are transmitted as an ‘original receipt data set’, secure against
manipulation, to the original receipt storage provider
DrustaNET, and secured and saved using the MD5
algorithm.
SUMMARY
Work is currently well underway on this moderni-
sation project, and by the end of 2016 most of the
systems will have been modernised.
‘At this intermediate point, we can already see that
the technology employed to meet these requirements
has worked out well so far, together with the close
cooperation between Gunvor and Actemium. The
project is currently under control in terms of time,
quality, and costs, and as a project team we see the
further course until the completion of the project very
positively,’ says Syed Salman Afsar, project manager,
Gunvor Raffinerie Ingolstadt.
REFERENCES
1 Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
2 Programmable Logic Controller
3 Controller Development Systems
4 Fibre Optic
FOR MORE INFORMATION
This article was written by Klaus-Peter Fischer, team
leader/senior project manager, Actemium Oil & Gas
and Environmental Solutions.
klaus-peter.fischer@actemium.de
02