Malaysia LNG shares the transformative impact DRA has had on their operations

Malaysia LNG (MLNG) showcased their achievements in improving plant safety, reliability and utilization by using DRA at the ISA Digital Transformation Conference in Malaysia on September 21, 2021. The details of the presentation are as follows:

Title: Dynamic Risk Analyzer (DRA) Enabling Process Safety

Time: September 21st 2021, 3:45 PM Malaysia time

Abstract: The LNG industry, which is facing a growing number of profitability challenges, has an opportunity to increase the plant reliability and utilization with cutting edge, early risk detection technologies. Unplanned downtime and incidents cost LNG plants substantial monetary losses every year, in the form of lost production opportunity and unnecessary venting for system de-pressurization. MLNG believes that the losses due to internal factors can be prevented since most of them are attributed to the inability of the operating personnel to capture early signs of failures (incipient events) and ensure timely intervention to mitigate a critical anomaly.

In 2018, MLNG embarked on a journey to enable our operating personnel to shift focus from dealing with critical failures and slowdowns to being vigilant of implicit leading indicators of potential risks and addressing them proactively. Dynamic Risk Analyzer (DRA), designed to detect risks at their initiation stage using machine learning and AI, is deployed in MLNG plant wide, transforming the way we identify and reduce the operational risks. DRA delivers advanced warnings on hidden process issues by analyzing the entire spectrum of continuously generated process data. With the implementation of DRA, MLNG personnel are able to deploy proactive actions and preventative maintenance by acting on the identified early indicators of the potential failures or abnormal situations.

This presentation showed the implementation and application of DRA in MLNG, its success and challenges.

Highlights from the Presentation

• In the 1st year of DRA implementation, the product losses were reduced 8 fold - from 3.5 cargoes (2018) to 0.4 cargo (2019).

• It takes total management commitment to change employee behavior, just providing a digital tool is not enough.

• Multidisciplinary effort increases the likelihood of digital tool’s (DRA) success.

• The right role modeling by leaders, such as DRA Quarterly Engagement with the company CEO, is very important.

• Clearly defined work process, combined with periodic assessment of DRA effectiveness by reviewing loss event data, will help achieve continuous success.

About the Conference

The ISA Digital Transformation Virtual Conference Malaysia was ISA’s first internationally focused virtual conference. ISA partnered with Malaysian National Oil Company, Petronas, for this one-day technical event where Petronas delivered case studies on using digital transformation efforts to increase process safety. This exclusive, in-depth program explored how Petronas has accelerated the use of machine learning, data analytics and IIoT technologies to streamline operations, improve life-of-field production and increase HSSE across the region.