Woodfield has designed, engineered, manufactured and supplied LNG Truck loading system with complete PLC based automation right from truck entry to exit for Shell Energy India’s LNG Terminal, Gujarat (India).

Scope of the Project:

The scope of the Project was to design a system to deliver LNG (in cryogenic conditions at -176 Deg. C) in road tankers from LNG storage tanks.

System Description:

The system supplied by Woodfield comprised of field unit which was skid mounted metering and control of the tanker filling operation. The system also included a control room based PLC system to operate the entire loading operation cycle starting from truck entry to truck exit and invoice generation.

The Skid system was supplied with features like recirculation of flow, sick tanker unloading facility and LNG loading & vapour arms.

Human Machine Interface (HMI) was provided on skid as operator interface for managing and controlling the loading operation. The screen supplied is auto updated for loading sequence, command for starting the operation, status of loading, displaying alarms and events during course of loading.

Salient Features:

  • LNG truck loading skid with loading arm suitable for LNG loading with a filling capacity 76 m3/hr (1266 LPM)
  • System is supplied with complete safety interlocks that safeguards against any operational hazards and meets Shell global safety standards.
  • Skid is fully insulated with cold insulation made of high class insulation material to prevent any gas / vapor / ice formation.

The PLC is created keeping in mind future expansion and programmed to have 4 systems operational on the same PLC Control Panel & TAS Operations.

Commissioning Support:

A dedicated Woodfield team was deployed at site for installation and commissioning work.

Before handing the system over, successful loading trial runs were conducted for Tank Truck capacity. Overall loading time is 45 minutes for complete loading operation including precooling, loading and nitrogen purging.

Complete operation cycle trial had been carried out as per designed procedure from truck entry to exit and training was provided to Shell Operations and Maintenance team as part of system hand over.

The PLC control Panel and all other systems together were integrated with weigh bridge & present DCS Terminal Software.