An Interactive 5-Day Training Course
Instrumentation and Process Control Fundamentals for Facilities
A practical grounding in instrumentation and process control.
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Duration
5 Days
Price
$ 4,000
Starting From
03 May 2027
Instrumentation and Process Control Fundamentals for Facilities
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Instrumentation and Process Control Fundamentals for Facilities - SF-IPCF-PEA27
| Code | Date | Time | Duration | Location | Currency | Early Bird Fee Per Person |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SF-IPCF-PEA27 | 03 - 07 May 2027 | 10 AM CST | 5 Days - 4 Hours / Day |
Online |
USD |
4000 |
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Instrumentation and Process Control Fundamentals for Facilities
This training covers how process variables are measured in an oil and gas facility, how the measurements are transmitted, how control loops act on them, and how safety instrumented systems protect the plant when control is not enough. It explains instrument operating principles, installation requirements and error sources, control loop tuning and behaviour, typical facility control schemes, and the architecture of modern control and shutdown systems.
Description
A process facility is controlled through a chain that runs from a physical sensing element, through a transmitter and signal path, to a controller, and back out to a final control element. Every part of that chain has failure modes, accuracy limits and installation requirements, and a weakness anywhere in it produces poor control at the process. This training works through the whole chain in order. It covers the measurement principles behind pressure, temperature, level and flow instruments, the practical error sources associated with each, and the installation details that determine whether a good instrument gives a good reading.
The training then addresses control itself. Control loop behaviour, proportional, integral and derivative action, tuning and its consequences, and the common multi-element schemes of cascade, ratio, override and split range control are covered against the specific loops found in oil and gas facilities: separator level and pressure control, compressor anti-surge control, flow and pressure control across export systems, and temperature control on heaters and exchangers. Control system architecture is covered at the level needed to understand how a facility's PLC, DCS, SCADA and HMI layers relate. The training closes with safety instrumented systems, emergency shutdown hierarchy, safety integrity levels and the testing and maintenance regime that keeps protective functions available.
Instrumentation is the only view an operator has of the process. Everything shown on a screen, logged in a historian, used in production reporting or acted on by a trip originates in a field instrument. When that instrument is wrong, every decision downstream of it is wrong, and the error is usually invisible because the display continues to show a plausible number. Impulse lines block, level bridles fill with wax, orifice plates wear and reverse, thermowells fail, and transmitters drift. Recognising the signature of a bad measurement is a core operating skill.
Control quality has a direct production consequence. A separator level loop that cycles produces alternating carryover and gas blowby, upsetting downstream equipment and putting liquid into compressors. A poorly tuned pressure controller causes flare events and lost gas. An anti-surge controller with an incorrect margin either allows a compressor into surge or recycles unnecessarily and wastes power. In each case the equipment is capable and the process is sound; the control is what limits performance.
Safety instrumented systems carry the highest consequence. Emergency shutdown, high-integrity pressure protection, fire and gas detection and blowdown initiation are the engineered barriers between a process deviation and a major accident. Their reliability is quantified through safety integrity levels and maintained through proof testing on a defined interval. A bypassed transmitter, an untested trip or an inhibited function silently removes a barrier the risk assessment assumed was present.
Finally, instrumentation determines what a facility can be measured for commercially. Custody transfer metering, allocation measurement and production accounting all rest on instruments with defined uncertainty and calibration status. Measurement error at these points is financial error, and it persists until someone with technical understanding investigates it.
By the end of this training, participants will be able to:
- Explain the measurement principle, application range and error sources of the pressure, temperature, level and flow instruments used in oil and gas facilities
- Select appropriate instrument types for a defined process service and specify correct installation requirements
- Interpret instrument tag numbers, loop diagrams and instrument datasheets
- Describe signal transmission methods including analogue, HART, fieldbus and wireless, and the requirements of intrinsic safety
- Analyse control valve behaviour including characteristic, sizing, actuation and fail-safe action
- Explain control loop response and the effect of proportional, integral and derivative action on process behaviour
- Evaluate the typical control schemes used across separation, compression, heating and export systems
- Describe control system architecture across field devices, PLC, DCS, SCADA and operator interface layers
- Apply safety instrumented system concepts including shutdown hierarchy, safety integrity level, proof testing and bypass management
The training follows the measurement and control chain in physical order, from sensing element through transmitter, signal path, controller and final control element back to the process. Each instrument type is presented with its operating principle, installation requirements, calibration method and documented error sources, illustrated with instrument drawings, loop diagrams and datasheets. Control behaviour is taught through response traces showing the effect of tuning and scheme selection on real process variables, using loops taken from operating facilities. Safety instrumented system material is presented against cause and effect charts and shutdown keys, and participants are encouraged to bring measurement or control problems from their own plants for group analysis.
Organisations sending participants to this training will:
- Improve measurement reliability and reduce decisions taken on faulty instrument data
- Reduce process upsets, flaring and equipment trips caused by poorly performing control loops
- Strengthen safety instrumented system discipline, including bypass control and proof testing compliance
- Improve communication between operations, instrument technicians and control engineers by establishing a shared technical language
- Reduce measurement uncertainty in allocation and custody transfer and the commercial exposure that comes with it
- Build internal capability to specify, review and accept instrumentation and control deliverables from contractors
Participants will:
- Understand how every process measurement in the facility is produced and where it can go wrong
- Recognise faulty measurements from process behaviour rather than waiting for instrument failure alarms
- Explain why a control loop behaves as it does and what tuning or scheme change would improve it
- Read loop diagrams, instrument datasheets and cause and effect charts confidently
- Understand safety instrumented functions, their integrity requirements and the consequence of bypassing them
- Build technical capability that supports movement into control, instrumentation or process engineering roles
- Instrument and control engineers and technicians
- Process, facilities and production engineers
- Operations supervisors, panel operators and senior field operators
- Maintenance and reliability engineers supporting instrumented systems
- Process safety and functional safety practitioners
- Project and commissioning engineers responsible for instrumentation scope
- Graduate engineers entering instrumentation, control or facilities roles
Module 1 - Instrumentation and Control in the Facility
- Role of measurement, control and protection in facility operation
- The measurement and control chain: sensor, transmitter, controller, final element
- Instrument documentation: index, datasheets, loop diagrams, hook-up drawings
- Instrument tag numbering and ISA S5.1 identification
- Accuracy, precision, repeatability, rangeability, turndown and uncertainty
- Calibration, span, zero and drift
- Hazardous area classification and its effect on instrument selection
Module 2 - Pressure and Temperature Measurement
- Pressure measurement principles: gauge, absolute, differential
- Bourdon tubes, diaphragms, capacitance and piezoresistive sensors
- Pressure transmitters, impulse lines, manifolds and seals
- Diaphragm seals, capillary systems and their limitations
- Impulse line blockage, freezing, hydrate formation and purging
- Temperature measurement: thermocouples, RTDs, thermistors, bimetallic devices
- Thermowell design, insertion length, response time and vibration failure
- Common pressure and temperature measurement errors and their diagnosis
Module 3 - Level Measurement
- Differential pressure level measurement and density compensation
- Displacer and float type instruments
- Radar, guided wave radar and ultrasonic level measurement
- Capacitance, nuclear and load cell techniques
- Interface level measurement in three-phase separators
- Level bridles, standpipes, gauge glasses and their maintenance problems
- Emulsion bands, foam and solids and their effect on level readings
- Level measurement in pressurised and boiling service
Module 4 - Flow Measurement
- Differential pressure flow measurement: orifice plates, venturis, nozzles, flow conditioning
- Straight run requirements and installation effects
- Turbine and positive displacement meters
- Ultrasonic meters: transit time and Doppler
- Coriolis mass meters and their advantages and limits
- Vortex, thermal mass and variable area meters
- Multiphase and wet gas metering in production service
- Flow computers, compensation and standard volume calculation
- Meter proving, calibration and uncertainty management
- Custody transfer and allocation measurement requirements
Module 5 - Analysers and Specialised Measurement
- Water content, water cut and BS&W measurement
- Gas chromatography and composition measurement
- Moisture and dew point analysers
- Hydrogen sulphide, oxygen and carbon dioxide analysers
- Density and viscosity measurement
- Sampling systems, sample conditioning and representative sampling
- Analyser houses, maintenance requirements and availability
Module 6 - Signals, Transmission and Field Systems
- Pneumatic and analogue electronic signal standards
- Two-wire and four-wire transmitters and loop power
- HART protocol and digital diagnostics over analogue signals
- Fieldbus and industrial ethernet protocols
- Wireless instrumentation and its appropriate applications
- Cabling, junction boxes, marshalling and earthing
- Intrinsic safety, explosion proof and increased safety protection methods
- Signal isolation, surge protection and noise
- Instrument air supply, quality and reliability
Module 7 - Final Control Elements
- Control valve construction: body, trim, seat, packing
- Valve flow characteristics: linear, equal percentage, quick opening
- Valve sizing, flow coefficient and valve authority
- Actuators: diaphragm, piston, electric and hydraulic
- Positioners, boosters, solenoids and volume tanks
- Fail-safe action selection and its process basis
- Cavitation, flashing, noise and severe service trim
- Variable speed drives and pump or compressor speed control as final elements
- Valve stiction, hysteresis and their effect on control quality
Module 8 - Control Loop Fundamentals
- Open loop and closed loop control
- Process characteristics: gain, dead time, time constant, self-regulation
- Proportional, integral and derivative action and their individual effects
- Controller tuning methods and practical tuning procedure
- Stability, oscillation, offset and sluggish response
- Direct and reverse acting controllers and correct action selection
- Manual, automatic and cascade modes and bumpless transfer
- Diagnosing poor loop performance: measurement, valve, tuning or process
Module 9 - Facility Control Schemes
- Separator level control and interface control
- Separator and system pressure control, including flare and blowdown interaction
- Cascade, ratio, override and split range control applications
- Compressor anti-surge and capacity control
- Pump and export flow control schemes
- Fired heater and exchanger temperature control
- Glycol dehydration and treating package control
- Chemical injection and metering control
- Feedforward control and constraint control concepts
- Facility-wide control philosophy and operating envelope maintenance
Module 10 - Control System Architecture and Operator Interface
- Field devices, remote input and output and marshalling
- Programmable logic controllers and their application
- Distributed control systems and their structure
- SCADA systems, telemetry and remote facility monitoring
- Human machine interface design and operator situation awareness
- Alarm philosophy, alarm rationalisation and alarm flood management
- Historians, trending and data use in production reporting
- Cyber security considerations for industrial control systems
- System redundancy, availability and maintenance
Module 11 - Safety Instrumented Systems and Shutdown
- Difference between control systems and safety instrumented systems
- Emergency shutdown hierarchy and shutdown levels
- Cause and effect charts and shutdown logic
- Safety instrumented functions and safety integrity levels
- Redundancy and voting architectures
- Fire and gas detection systems and executive action
- High integrity pressure protection systems
- Proof testing, test intervals and demand rate
- Bypass, inhibit and override management and its control
- Functional safety lifecycle in operations and maintenance
Module 12 - Calibration, Maintenance and Troubleshooting
- Calibration procedures, standards and traceability
- Instrument maintenance strategy and criticality ranking
- Common instrument failure modes by measurement type
- Systematic troubleshooting method for measurement and control problems
- Loop checking, commissioning and pre-start-up verification
- Documentation, records and management of change for instrumented systems
- Spares, obsolescence and instrument lifecycle management
Upon successful completion of this training course, delegates will be awarded an official Certificate of Completion issued by the Petroleum Engineers Association (PEA), an ISO 9001:2015 certified training organization. The certificate carries 10 Credits and formally records the total learning hours completed.
Each certificate is signed by the Course Facilitator and the CEO of the Petroleum Engineers Association, and serves as verifiable proof of professional training that delegates can present to employers and professional bodies worldwide.
This course is led by an instrumentation and control systems specialist with more than 20 years in the oil and gas industry, built on understanding how a facility is measured, controlled and protected.
He currently holds instrumentation and control engineering leadership responsibility with a major operator managing field instrumentation and control systems across production facilities, covering signal transmission, control loop behaviour and safety instrumented systems — the disciplines that keep a facility measured, controlled and protected at all times. Earlier in his career he served as an instrumentation engineer on major facility developments, leading control system architecture and safety instrumented system design work across a wide range of process control applications. Across two decades he has trained numerous engineers and technical staff new to instrumentation and control on how measurement, control and safety systems fit together.
That operating background shapes how he teaches. Delegates learn not only how instrumentation and control systems are designed to work, but how they perform in the field — where pressure, temperature, level and flow measurements actually fall short, why signal transmission and control valve issues develop, what makes control loops behave unpredictably, how control system architecture affects overall reliability, and how safety instrumented systems protect the plant when control alone is not enough. Every module is anchored in real instrumentation and control data, design decisions and lessons from operating facilities.
His subject coverage spans the full instrumentation and control chain: pressure, temperature, level and flow measurement, signal transmission, control valves, control loop behaviour, control system architecture and safety instrumented systems.
He has delivered instrumentation and process control training for many years across the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia, working with mixed groups of engineers, technical staff and non-technical professionals moving into oil and gas facilities roles. He is an active contributor to industry forums on instrumentation and process control fundamentals.
His approach is practical, discussion-led and grounded in real instrumentation and control experience — not the textbook.
Frequently Asked Questions
All course bookings made through PEA are strictly non-refundable. By registering for a course, you acknowledge and accept that all fees are payable in full and are not subject to refund under any circumstances, including changes in personal or professional commitments or partial attendance.
PEA reserves the right to make reasonable adjustments to course content, trainers, or schedules where necessary, without entitling delegates to a refund. Comprehensive details of each course — including objectives, target audience, and content — are clearly outlined before enrolment, and it is the responsibility of the delegate to ensure the course's suitability prior to booking.
For any inquiries related to cancellations or bookings, please contact our support team, who will be happy to assist you.
