Founded in 1989, Texon serves the crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids marketing area of the energy industry. Texon has specific expertise in the installation and operation of high performance patented blending systems that effectively blend light hydrocarbon liquids with heavier hydrocarbon liquids in compliance with pipeline requirements such as Reid Vapor Pressure and Distillation specifications. Texon has been operating such systems since 2001, and currently operates in five states, ensuring compliance with EPA regulations and pipeline/system specifications.

The blending subsystems consist of receiving, storage, injection and sampling which are controlled by PLC’s. These subsystems are connected by means of peer-to-peer TCP/IP. An HMI server acts as a data concentrator for the monitoring of system operation and safety notifications.

The receiving process vaporizes stored liquid to pressurize and discharge product off rail cars into storage tanks. Offload pumps are used to assist in this process. The receiving process includes compressors, pumps, level sensors and temperature sensors. The storage subsystem includes tank level sensors, temperature sensors and control valves. Data from the storage subsystem is captured for inventory management, logistics and accounting analysis. All data is archived via OPC to a process historian for review of performance and activity.

The injection process blends the stored product into the target stream with extreme accuracy. The injection components consist of pumps, pressure sensors, control valves, temperature sensors and mass flow meters. Data from these components are reviewed for injection efficiency. The sampling subsystems consist of pre-blend and in some cases post-blend analysis. RVP (Reid Vapor PSI) and T v/l (Temperature for a vapor liquid ratio) are captured for EPA compliance and overall system performance.

The Canary software installations include the Canary Enterprise Historian, Canary Logger and Trend Link. The ability to configure the historian and logger to run as a service is extremely valuable as well as having the added benefit of running independent of the HMI connecting directly to an OPC server. Remote data logging is done at locations where two servers exist, allowing the use of a single Canary Enterprise Historian.

Randy Walker, control systems engineer, says “Canary Trend Link is a valuable tool allowing us to graphically review archived data for maintenance issues and performance. Templates can be saved of commonly reviewed trends for quick future access. The export utility is used to generate viewed trends into reports for distribution.”

Local site data is rolled up into weekly files to reduce the volume of files and simplify system maintenance. The purging of local data is done seasonally. The Texon corporate office which includes a central Canary Enterprise Historian and Trend Link is synchronized daily with each of the remote sites. This data is archived on a data drive for reports and review by support staff and management.

Archived files are light in size and overall performance has been exceptional. Configuration requires average technical abilities. “This trending software has proven to be a valuable asset in our day-to-day operations,” Walker concludes.