Melbourne Airport JUHI Control System Upgrade – Melbourne VIC
This multi-year multi-site project has required meticulous E&I engineering and software design, project planning and liaison over many years involving stakeholders from various major Oil Companies and a host of other major engineering consultancies, equipment suppliers and contractors.
Following project feasibility studies by Norton Consultants in mid-2010, this project commenced with a staged upgrade of the Somerton Jet Pipeline (Mobil Altona Refinery and Viva Energy Newport Terminal to Mobil Somerton Terminal) control system in June 2012, followed by a similar upgrade of the Tullamarine Jet Pipeline (Mobil Somerton Terminal to Melbourne JUHI) control system in November 2015 and finally the staged upgrade of the Melbourne JUHI control system with final cut-over in August 2017, necessitating complete replacement of ageing control system infrastructure at both Melbourne JUHI and Mobil Somerton Terminal.
The challenges of this project were many and varied including the need for all upgrade and replacement work to be carried out on systems in full operation, with fuel demand increasing on an almost weekly basis as Melbourne Airport steadily grows. This required extensive planning, stakeholder consultation and some novel approaches to E&I design, software development, installation supervision and commissioning carried out under the direction of Norton Consultants. Through significant increases in system reliability, maintainability and data supply to JUHI Operations and maintenance personnel, this new hybrid PLC/RTU/SCADA system now forms a dependable backbone upon which future capacity upgrades at this site can be built.