3D Model for Oil Refinery Plants in USA Created by LTTS

Client and Project Overview: The client has three oil refinery plants in the US and wanted to create a 3D model of the existing facility for easier accessibility as compared to physical drawings and for future expansion.  A 3D model for oil refinery plants has proven to be invaluable as it improves efficiency, safety, accuracy, quality, and reduces overall cost.  Digitally savvy LTTS (L&T Technology Services) was chosen, as it brings over 80 years of field experience in the oil and gas sector.

Challenges and LTTS’ Approach: The main challenge in the lifecycle management of any oil plant is due to insufficient flow of intelligence in the form of data, drawings, or documents entered during operations.  The manual and semi-automated procedures used by plants to overcome these kinds of issues are laborious and costly, resulting in increased plant maintenance expenses.  To overcome these challenges, LTTS captured “As-is/As-built” physical plant data using laser scanning technology and created 3D models of the existing and newly scanned data of the asset.  Next, an intelligent “As-built” 3D model of the plant was created from the captured laser data, using latest technology and 3D modelling software.  The work involved:

• More than 300 equipment and 2,100 modelled lines

• Scanning the entire facility to create the point cloud data and converting it to a format that can be extracted and used for creation of final 3D models

Tangible Benefits: LTTS’ approach helped the client in myriad ways:

• Transformation of engineering information from legacy systems to an Intelligent Platform (data driven)

• 3D model validation of reports (line list, equipment list, equipment datasheets, valve lists and worked on valve tag/size)

• Intelligent 3D model helps in planning during the annual turnarounds

• Specification creation and cross referencing while creating the 3D models