Product News

Madrid, July 12, 2004 - Telvent, the Global RealTime IT Company and subsidiary of Abengoa, has announced the availability of the latest addition to its industry renowned family of Communication and Application Terminal (CAT) Units - the gasCAT, built specifically to handle the challenges of the Oil & Gas Industry. The gasCAT's technology provides new features and benefits that make it the optimal choice for the most demanding measurement and control applications. Its design is based on a highly flexible hardware platform that can serve as an intelligent remote unit, accurate flow computer or as a stand-alone control system.

Telvent's comprehensive Liquids and Gas Management Suites (LMS, GMS) allow energy companies to streamline their pipeline business systems from production, through transmission to distribution and delivery, integrating their operational, measurement and commercial software requirements into a full-scale solution. According to Manuel Sanchez, Managing Director of Telvent, "The gasCAT product and the Liquids and Gas Management application suites will allow Telvent to provide a complete integrated operational measurement and business solution, allowing energy companies to better serve their customers and enhance their bottom line." The gasCAT product reinforces Telvent's leadership position by offering a complete oil & gas automation solution based on industry-proven Telvent technology.

Product Overview

Designed on an open-ended distributed architecture, and using a series of intelligent modules, the gasCAT product provides complete flexibility for implementing a reliable, powerful and versatile system, capable of handling the monitoring, control, automation and communications requirements of oil and gas applications. The gasCAT offers a powerful processing capability using a 32-bit 50 Mhz Motorola® PowerPC® RISC microprocessor and realtime, multitasking OS. Its impressive processing capability allows it to run sophisticated automation applications with uncompromising performance. Its conservative power usage is comparable to that of flow computers, which offer much lower performance.

Telvent's gasCAT is designed to integrate with any system environment by virtue of its extensive range of powerful communication and networking options, and its ability to support standard communications protocols. The gasCAT includes two built-in RS-232 ports and multiple optional RS232 ports can be provided, using additional serial communication modules. Two optional Ethernet 10Base-T ports allow integration into virtually any company's networking strategy.

gasCAT provides a comprehensive package that supports an extensive range of applications. Gas calculations are complaint with AGA and API standards: AGA 3 1985 and 1992 for orifice metering, AGA 7/ISO 9951 for turbine metering, AGA 5, GPA 2145 for energy calculation, AGA 8 / ISO 12213-2, NX-19 GCN and NX-19 for compressibility, and API Chapter 21. Setting up meter runs is fast and easy, and up to 10 meter runs can be handled efficiently. gasCAT offers up to 35 days of hourly and daily gas meter historical data (volumetric flow, temperature, static and differential pressure, etc). gasCAT also stores an audit trail with all the relevant system events, within a user-configurable environment.

The gasCAT is available in a stand-alone configuration to satisfy specific low-cost application requirements of the Oil & Gas Industry such as local control of field equipment, including valves and motors. Based on Telvent's SM_GAS module, this compact configuration offers key PLC features with communications capability.

The gasCAT comes with software tools to simplify troubleshooting, repair and configuration (flow calculations and history). This tool works like a typical Windows® application, with online help and pull-down menus. Using this tool, it is possible to perform configuration and data retrieval, either locally or remotely. For its programming tool, gasCAT uses the ISaGRAF Workbench which allows the full capabilities of gasCAT to be exploited. Using the ISaGRAF Workbench, comprehensive PID (proportional, integral and derivative) control loops can be programmed.

gasCAT is compliant to safety certifications for hazardous locations. Recently, it has obtained the UL certification for Hazardous Locations (Class I, Division 2, Groups A, B, C and D) for an ambient temperature rating from -40ºC to +85ºC. The Operating Temperature Code is T4A and this certification is recognized in both the European ad North American markets. The certification process for the new European ATEX100 directive (ATEX Directive 94/9/EC) is currently underway.

About Telvent

Telvent (NASDAQ: TLVT), the Global RealTime IT Company, specializes in high value-added solutions in four specific industrial sectors (Energy, Traffic, Transport, and Environment) in Europe, North America, Latin America and China. (www.telvent.com)

Related links: gasCAT product cutsheet

More information: info@telvent.com