Rolta acquires Piocon Technologies of US
30 December 2008
Mumbai-based engineering and IT firm Rolta India has announced the acquisition of specialist IT firm Piocon Technologies Inc based in Chicago, Illinois, USA, for an undisclosed sum.
The acquisition of the template-based solution provider will help Rolta address critical operational needs of refineries in the oil and gas sector, the company said in a website release.
''This solution is field-proven, and has been deployed successfully in multiple refining facilities of one of the world's largest oil companies,'' Rolta said.
''The solution was recognised by Oracle with the `Titan' award for Piocon's innovative approach to integrating business intelligence tools with enterprise-level engineering databases and applications to provide operational excellence, reliability metrics and reporting for more than 100,000 pieces of equipment and hundreds of operations throughout the large refinery,' it added.
The solution helps refineries to ward off unplanned shutdowns stemming from reliability-related incidents for periods of over six times the refinery's historical average and 3 times its previous record.
The solution can also be scaled to address process improvements in a refinery to achieve downtime reduction, inventory rationalisation, optimisation of crude selection, and improved refinery planning.
Industry experts believe that when fully deployed, the Rolta solution could save as much as $20 million annually for a medium-sized refinery, ensuring very high returns on their investment and allowing for business decisions to be made expeditiously, it said.
The Piocon solution is based on the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) AP-913 standard, which was originally developed to ensure equipment reliability within the nuclear power industry, but is now widely accepted by other process industries. Therefore, this solution is eminently suited to be extended beyond refinery operations to up-stream and down-stream operations in oil and gas, and to other industry segments like petrochemicals, mining, power, and especially highly regulated sectors like pharmaceuticals and nuclear power, the release pointed out.
