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Totalflow Selects eLynx as Partner in Excellence
BARTLESVILLE, OK, March 21, 2001---Totalflow Division of ABB Automation has recognized eLynx Technologies, Tulsa, as a Partner in excellence for coordinating fieldwide data collection from Totalflow devices and distributing the information across the web for use at multiple locations throughout a customer company. Support for all Totalflow devices, including electronic flow meters, RTUs, BTU analyzers and level sensors is available.
This is a breakthrough alliance for eLynx, which just launched its web-based field automation system as a new service offering in January. The system was developed and field-proven by American Central Gas over the past four years in its Panola County Gathering system in East Texas.
Totalflow is the world's leading manufacturer of electronic flow meters [EFM's] used in the natural gas industry and an emerging leader in the oil and gas liquids industry. By joining forces with eLynx, Totalflow can offer an advanced communication system to existing customers as well as to prospective customers who desire optimum functionality from an EFM system. For eLynx, an alliance with Totalflow gives their system the wide industry acceptance needed to establish a critical mass of customers that will lead to an industry-standard communications interface.
Both companies are excited about how the alliance can reach out to the vast, untapped market of several hundred thousand wells still being metered with paper chart recorders. This huge market has been slow to adopt EFM's because of the incremental cost of new equipment and retraining personnel in management of a new system. Totalflow and eLynx believe that the alliance enhances the economics of an EFM retrofit in four ways:
First, adoption of eLynx will minimize the cost of workforce retraining when a company decides to go to electronic metering. Because eLynx manages the communication function and integrates all the field data at the central host computer, the customer's field personnel don't have to.
Second, the use of eLynx for data management and distribution will lead to substantial gains in workforce productivity. Since eLynx monitors the whole field, personnel no longer have to check every well and can focus their effort on sites that need attention. This approach of �management by exception� is the greatest labor-saving technique to reach the oilpatch in decades. In the present environment of extreme tightness in oilpatch labor markets, efficient utilization of personnel becomes a critical consideration.
Third, the information output generated by eLynx represents a great advance over almost any available system. Numeric data is converted into graphic representations of whole fields or gathering systems. Personnel can "see" the whole field at a glance. Production data is compiled in time sequences for ready conversion to graphs and charts that highlight trends.
q Fourth, manual data entry is completely eliminated through interfaces to back-office systems company-wide. The information output can flow to revenue accounting, headquarters engineering, or any other functional area where field production information is a key system input.
The companies are also confident that there are substantial benefits to be gained by Totalflow�s existing installed base of customers. Don Salyards, Totalflow general manager of sales, says, "The design and interface of the eLynx system is eminently relevant to the needs of field personnel. The capabilities of the eLynx system provide another avenue of flexibility for Totalflow customers seeking to automate their systems and manage their field data".
For Totalflow customers who adopt eLynx for field communications and data integration, the first benefit will be opening up the communications loop to a variety of devices besides Totalflow EFM's. The eLynx system can receive field data from compressor control panels, submersible pump controllers, legacy metering systems installed by others, and so forth.
The second benefit is on the output side. By compiling data on a secure website, eLynx makes it available to authorized personnel anywhere in the company. Alarm callouts can be programmed to reach field personnel on their pagers, PDA's or cellphones. Beyond the field, the information output now becomes available to accounting and engineering groups located great distances from the field.
For further information, contact:
- Don Salyards, Totalflow general manager of sales, 713/821-8127
- Keith Curlee, eLynx managing director, strategic development, 918/496-6437
Totalflow Measurement and Control Systems, a division of ABB Automation, Inc., manufactures electronic flow computers for natural gas measurement, remote production automation systems, natural gas chromatographs and remote tank level monitoring and control systems.
For Immediate Release
Wednesday, March 21, 2001
6:00 a.m. Eastern time
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