Control system alarms reduced by over 95%

The project improved control system alarm performance, increased operator effectiveness and brought refinery alarm rates within the Engineering Equipment and Materials Users Association (EEMUA) 191 guideline recommendations at Romania’s largest refinery.

With an annual processing capacity of approximately five million tonnes of fuel products, the Petromidia facility operates a broad range of conversion units and maintains a Nelson Complexity Index of 9.32, creating significant volumes of process data and alarms. Over time, control system alarms had evolved beyond recommended best practices, exposing operators to high alarm volumes, particularly during plant disturbances. Chattering alarms also contributed unnecessary noise, making it more difficult for operators to identify and respond to critical process events. Operators routinely experienced alarm flooding, while some alarms remained permanently active under normal operating conditions.

To address these challenges, Rominserv, Rompetrol’s engineering and maintenance services provider, collaborated with Emerson to improve alarm quality and reduce nuisance alarms across the refinery. The team implemented Emerson’s DeltaV AgileOps software to provide continuous visibility into alarm performance, including average and peak alarm rates, recurring alarm sequences and time spent outside recommended operating thresholds.

DeltaV AgileOps software captures alarm and event data directly from the DeltaV Distributed Control System which operates the plant, enabling engineering teams to identify high-frequency alarms, stale alarms and nuisance ‘bad actor’ alarms responsible for disproportionate alarm activity. Using performance dashboards and historical trending tools, refinery personnel evaluated alarm behaviour during steady-state operation, start-up conditions and process disturbances, while validating proposed changes to alarm limits, priorities and suppression strategies against actual plant data.

As a result of the project, the refinery reduced alarm generation from more than two million alarms per month during normal operation to fewer than 50,000 alarms per month. According to EEMUA 191 guidelines, operators should receive no more than one alarm every ten minutes during steady-state operation.

“Alarm management plays a critical role in maintaining safe, efficient refinery operations,” said Nilca George, process engineering director, Rompetrol Rafinare. “The continuous alarm performance monitoring and analytics provided by DeltaV AgileOps has significantly reduced operator alarm burden while improving overall operational awareness. The resulting system is more stable and better aligned with actual plant conditions, enabling operators to focus on meaningful alarms and respond more effectively to process disturbances.”

The implementation also improved long-term visibility into control system performance through automated alarm and event reporting. Existing historical alarm and event retention was extended – from approximately four to five days to nearly two months – enabling more effective analysis of recurring issues and supporting better-informed maintenance and optimisation decisions.

“Modern control systems provide enormous amounts of operational information, but operators need the right context and visibility to act effectively,” explained Guido Wink, vice president of Emerson’s control systems and software business in Europe. “DeltaV AgileOps helps organisations continuously monitor and improve alarm system performance so operators can focus on the events that matter most to safe, efficient operation.”

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