Weather - Saudi Aramco

20 Saudi Aramco Dimensions
SANDSTORM PHOTOS BY DOUGLAS J. HORN

For Saudi Aramco, Mother Nature is a critical
project-management concern
WRITTEN BY MARGOT RAWLINGS
It’s the day after the first heavy
winter rains, and the world feels
cleansed and fresh. The color has
returned, the leaves are
green and the roof tiles
are terracotta once more
in the familiar, seasonal
rhythms of weather.
The desert flora will be erupting in its intermittent
splendor and the fragile ecology will survive
another cycle. It feels like a new beginning for us
all. Right now, I worry that my children are dressed
warmly enough for the cold winds on
the school playground, and while I’m
procrastinating about washing the
A Saudi Aramco employee checks the
WeatherNow Web site on the company’s
intranet system. The site provides
Kingdom-wide weather reports and data.
Summer 2009 21

In the pursuit of operational excellence, Saudi Aramco
has developed a meteorological system that continuously
delivers accurate weather and air-quality information
across the Kingdom in real-time.
Weather can cause all kinds of problems,
such as safety issues related to wind
(photo at left), and electrical power
transmission flaws caused by airborne
dust and sand (below).
22 Saudi Aramco Dimensions
SANDSTORM PHOTOS BY DOUGLAS J. HORN

esultant mud crust off my car, I remind myself how shortlived
this season will be — and how soon we will once
more be immersed in the Peninsula’s relentless, searing heat.
It doesn’t matter where you live on Earth, no one and
nothing escapes the weather — we just adjust to its differing
extremes. We all understand the effect of Saudi Arabia’s climate
on us personally, but the weather plays a significant but
less self-evident role in most of Saudi Aramco’s operations.
For example, high ambient air temperatures cause energy
loss during overhead power transmission. Pilots of both aircraft
and ships watch the wind to ensure smooth navigation
with optimal fuel use. Similarly, heavy-lift crane operations
are instantly suspended if the winds exceed threshold safety
values. During emergency drills, the wind direction must be
known to safely evacuate personnel. Indeed, wind direction is
constantly monitored throughout the company.
Saudi Aramco has been monitoring the weather since the
1930s. In those days, daily readings were taken manually and
written up in notebooks. The first automation came with the
introduction of a timer-based mechanical drum that tracked
temperature swings throughout the day. It wasn’t until the
early 1980s that data gathering became “semi-automated” in
Summer 2009 23

esponse to the company’s need to monitor its emissions
within the air-quality standards set by the Kingdom’s
Presidency for Meteorology and Environment.
At that time, the data was recorded in stand-alone data
files, connected to an electronic data logger at each remote
station. These files needed to be physically gathered from the
field on floppy discs, driven back to Dhahran and manually
consolidated into spreadsheets for analysis.
The next advance was to use onsite modems and longdistance
phone calls to retrieve the data at regular intervals.
Although more convenient than site visits, this system was
prone to technical problems. During this era of semi-automated
consolidation of data for the annual environmental reports
took several months. Responding to ad hoc data requests
from facility planners, engineers and others was a significant
challenge due to the collation, quality assurance and reformatting
required.
Modern-day assessment of the weather has come a long
way from the days of drum recorders and floppy discs. In
the pursuit of operational excellence, Saudi Aramco has
developed a meteorological system that continuously delivers
accurate weather and air-quality information across the
Kingdom in real-time.
In a search for full automation, the Environmental
Protection Department (EPD) approached the e-Map Division
of Information Technology in 2002. The goal was to replace
the isolated “data pockets” with a single database and exploit
the on-demand data reporting capabilities of the Internet.
EPD sought to leverage the data to ease their annual reporting
requirements, and also to allow easy access to other
organizations. For e-Map Division and Information Technology
(IT), the data was a vital part of several real-time emergencyresponse
applications that were being developed. The stage
for innovation was set.
Peter O’Regan, an IT expert from e-Map Division, and
Daniel Beard, an environmental specialist from EPD, led
the project.
As Beard explains, “Like all creative projects, this system
has evolved gradually to capitalize on improvements in the
Saudi Aramco specialists monitor
the weather to insure safety
and efficiency for company
operations in the air and sea,
and on land.
24 Saudi Aramco Dimensions

Adesert by definition receives less than 10 inches of rain each
year. Here in Saudi Arabia, we tend to average around one to
two inches. Granted, some years we receive four inches, but in
other years precipitation is negligible, and that situation hasn’t altered
since records began.
The prevailing wind direction is consistently northwest, and
its form and force are largely influenced by global pressure
systems such as the Himalayan monsoon system centered
over the Asian subcontinent. For the most part, the location
of that wind system is semi-permanent, but it does move
around a little depending on what is happening with
the weather system to the north and
south of our location. A shift north
may draw in warm humid
warm air from the
south and if
the low-pressure system moves south,
we see drier northerly winds. But this feature
of our climate is there year after year and is
closely aligned to global trends and known weather
systems. One of the unavoidable features of the
local climate is humidity. We all know what humidity
is, right? Well, actually, probably not. Humidity is
quite a difficult concept to grasp. We are all probably
familiar with the term usually used by television weather
presenters — “relative humidity” — so let’s start there.
When we get up on a hot-and-sticky summer’s morning,
and the temperature is 90° Fahrenheit (F) and the relative
humidity is reported as 90 percent, we can feel the water
vapor in the air. So why when the temperature rises to 100°F
and the reported relative humidity drops to 70 percent do
we not feel any less sticky? Well, because the rising temperature
has increased the air’s ability to support water vapor.
Therefore the rise in temperature has not reduced the
water vapor in the air; it has just expanded the air’s ability to
support more. So we still feel that oppressive mist around us.
Oh, and we feel unpleasantly hot because we cool ourselves
by sweating, and when the air’s water-vapor content is high
this system doesn’t work as efficiently.
Relative humidity is a measure of how much water is in
the air versus how much water could be in the air at that
DEW POINT
HUMAN PERCEPTION
RELATIVE
HUMIDITY
75˚F+ Extremely uncomfortable, 62%
oppressive
70˚-74˚F Very humid, quite 52%-60%
uncomfortable
65˚-69˚F Somewhat uncomfortable for 44%-52%
most people at upper limit
60˚-64˚F Ok for most, but everyone 37%-46%
perceives humidity at upper
limit
55˚-59˚F Comfortable 31%-41%
50˚-54˚F Very comfortable 31%-37%
49˚F or lower Starting to feel a bit dry 30%
to some
HUMIDITY:
‘Hot and sticky’ isn’t the half of it
temperature. If no more water vapor
could be supported then relative
humidity will be 100 percent.
See, it’s complicated. Be patient.
Here’s a more accurate way to asses
how nasty it might be outside on that
August morning.
The more accurate measure of
humidity is the “dew point," which
takes into account the air temperature.
The dew point is the temperature the
air needs to be cooled to at that point
in time to achieve a relative humidity of
100%. At this point, the air cannot hold
any more water in gas form. If the air were to be cooled even
more, water vapor would have to come out of the atmosphere
in the liquid form, usually as fog or rain.
The higher the dew point rises, the greater the amount of
moisture in the air. This directly effects how "comfortable" it
will feel outside. At a relative humidity of
100% the dew point temperature always equals the temperature.
The greater the difference between temperature and
dew point, the lower the relative humidity.
Unlike relative humidity, if dew point increases it is only
because the amount of moisture in the air increases. If relative
humidity changes it can be because of temperature
changes or moisture changes, or both
So how does dew point feel? On a 90°F day the
following apply:
Summer 2009 25

company’s IT infrastructure and data networking. We tried
several technology approaches that worked fine initially but
encountered problems as more stations were added or server
configurations were changed. The system needed to be totally
scalable, redundant and self-monitoring to eliminate data loss
and ensure 24/7 availability. Working closely with experts
from several corporate IT organizations, we have achieved
this goal and created a very reliable and innovative system
that serves many operational and reporting needs.”
Having devised
In a land where rainfall is exceedingly the system for reliably
collecting and
sparse, water is precious, as in this
agricultural irrigation system in the
Eastern Province city of Hofuf below. storing the data, the
next step was to leverage the data and make it accessible to
staff within EPD, the Air Quality and Meteorology Unit, and
across the company. The Web was the logical tool for ondemand
reporting. Although access to the air-quality data is
restricted, the weather data is fully accessible online through
Saudi Aramco’s WeatherNow Web site. The first screen displays
a choice of company sites either from a drop-down
menu or by clicking on a point on a map. The current weather
conditions at that site are displayed, and the screen refreshes
automatically every minute. The site is visited by 500 and
1,000 employees each day.
For those looking for a little more detail, the site also
allows the visitor to query and download the entire weather

In an emergency, every second counts
and complex decisions are made under
pressure. Decision makers need facts: what is damaged,
and what is still at risk? Do we have people working or living
downwind? What is the safest approach route for emergency
services? Where are the safest sites for our field command or
patient triage?
During industrial emergencies such as gas leaks or fires,
the wind direction and speed is closely monitored to avoid
exposure to spreading fire or lethal gases such as H 2 S. The
wind direction must be monitored in real-time to manage the
ongoing situation.
“Traditionally, when we were alerted to an emergency,
someone would step out of the control room, look at a wind
sock, make a judgment about wind direction and speed and
report back. It led to inevitable inconsistencies and some
The Web-based Corporate Emergency
Responder Tool allows commanders to
quickly assess emergency situations.
errors. This
approach posed
significant risks for
emergency services,”
explains Abdulla N. Helal, North Ghawar Producing Department
Manager.
Seeking to improve this situation, NGPD partnered with
the e-Map Division of IT’s Corporate Applications Department
and the Corporate Emergency Responder Tool (CERT) was
born. This highly secure, Web-based application provides
decision makers with a “zoomable” satellite image overlaid
with digital maps created by Saudi Aramco’s own Surveying
Services Division. The digital map displays the roads, buildings,
utilities, and the thousands of oil and gas wells of Saudi
Aramco’s reservoirs, as well as live data streaming from the
weather stations and gas sensors is dynamically displayed
over the base map giving it tactical value.
The data from the weather stations is automatically interpreted
and delivered directly to the control room computer
screens. It’s presented both graphically and in written words,
THE CORPORATE
EMERGENCY
RESPONDER TOOL
so there is no room for misunderstanding.
“CERT is a very innovative system
that integrates many data sources and
systems into one intuitive graphical
interface. The searchable, dynamic
maps help emergency commanders to
quickly establish the facts of the situation
and coordinate a tightly integrated
response,” Helal explained.
Along with live weather and gas
sensor readings, CERT provides quick
links to information such as well-flow
information, including historical data,
and rig locations and movements captured
every night. All critical valve and
pipeline information including Flowlines
and Trunklines is also readily available.
These data help to
remotely pinpoint possible
causes for an event
and, therefore, help
determine appropriate
solutions.
An integral part of
CERT is a gas dispersion
model created by Aramco’s Loss Prevention
Department. In the case of a well blow-out,
CERT generates “exposure zones” that graphically
show how far the gas could travel in a
worst-case scenario and what could be directly
impacted. The map display helps to quickly
position road-blocks and safely evacuate personnel
from the danger areas. The CERT display
is closely monitored on large plasma screens in
multiple Emergency Control Centers amid the
constant radio updates. The CERT map provides a common
operating picture during a stressful time.
“CERT is far more than a computer application. It shows
what can be achieved when organizational boundaries are
discarded, and we all focus purely on a shared cause — safety.
We have made a unique and truly corporate tool that is used
across all producing facilities and control centers. It was built
entirely in-house using the combined talent of young programmers
and the experience of operations staff. Best of all,
CERT leverages existing IT hardware and software licenses,
plus the hard work and high-quality data from many organizations.
And at the core of it all are those towering weather
stations,” says Peter O’Regan, e-Map Division’s Geographical
Information Systems (GIS) expert and the architect of CERT.
Summer 2009 27

history for most company locations. With a single mouse
click, this data can be directly exported to Exel for graphing
and trend analysis.
“Information Technology continues to work closely with
EPD and all Producing organizations to create a comprehensive
real-time weather network. Instead of scattered, standalone
weather stations within the Plants, we now have a rich,
corporate database that feeds many critical applications —
every minute, 24 hours a day. This was all achieved by tapping
into existing in-house expertise and leveraging the existing
technology infrastructure. It is an ideal outcome,” said
Khalid A. Al-Arfaj, the Administrator of IT’s e-Map Division
So whether Saudi Aramco employees or dependents are
evaluating the safest location for a new facility; arranging a
crane lift; or planning the best time to plant roses at home,
visit http://weathernow. ■
Below, a rain drainage system along the East-West Pipeline in
1992. At right, an aerial view of the Manifa oil field project in
the Arabian Gulf, where weather can impact work safety.
Below right, a Saudi Aramco jet takes off in remote Shaybah,
where the searing Empty Quarter heat can affect lift.
28 Saudi Aramco Dimensions

Saudi Aramco’s immediate past president and CEO,
Abdallah S. Jum'ah, once said, “Environmental
accountability today stands as one of the most important
measures by which a company is regarded. If an organization
is not active in safeguarding the Earth's natural resources,
its best efforts in all other business areas are diminished.
Indeed, the very perception of corporate attitudes toward environmental
protection carries significant weight in the public's
trust of that company.”
In 1981, the Kingdom entrusted the Presidency of
Meteorology and Environment (PME) with control of pollution
and protection of the environment in Saudi Arabia.
Through the General Environmental Law and its Rules for
Implementation, PME aims to, among other things, preserve,
protect and develop the environment and safeguard it from
pollution, as well as protect public health from activities and
acts that harm the environment.
In recent decades, the nation’s industrial expansion and
population growth has increased pressure on the environment.
As the nation’s largest industry, Saudi Aramco has always been
very aware of its responsibility to maintain the highest environmental
standards.
The company’s Environmental Protection Department (EPD)
is charged with the task of monitoring air quality, reporting on
compliance and advising facility management on ways to “clean
up” their operations. The original weather stations in the Air
Quality and Meteorology Monitoring Network (AMMNET)
were erected by EPD to assist in that task. Each station records
parameters such as sulfur dioxide, inhalable particulates, ozone,
nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide.
Facility emissions are monitored at their source using stack
testing and continuous emission and process-control monitoring.
Sophisticated numerical air-dispersion techniques supported by
At left, an air-quality monitoring
device. Below, Saudi Aramco
employees check company
weather equipment and log the
information in comprehensive
reports.
COMPLIANCE MONITORING,
trend analysis and design data
data from AMMNET enable EPD
to estimate ground-level concentrations
of pollutants at various
distances from a potential emissions
source even before a facility is built or
modified. Such predictive modelling is
used to determine the type of facility
controls needed to comply with applicable
air-quality standards.
“From time to time, a facility may
breach the air-quality standards, but its
picked up immediately and reported.
We work with plant management to find
solutions to the problem, and as a result
the company has developed many
innovative technologies to clean up its
operations,” explains Earl K. Fosdik,
environmental projects manager.
But not all emissions can be pinpointed
to a single source, and solutions
are not always clear-cut. For
these substances, EPD monitors for
shifting trends. One such substance is
ozone. Although ozone in the upper
atmosphere protects the planet from
damaging ultraviolet rays, at ground
level it is an unwanted pollutant that
can affect human and plant health.
AMMNET and EPD have also provided
another service to the company
— design data. The design of the Shaybah heating, ventilation
and air conditioning system is an example. “The vendor originally
expected that air temperatures onsite would regularly
reach 60 degrees. Our monitoring at the time showed that
50 degrees was a more accurate average. Consequently, the
design was downscaled, and this saved the company millions of
dollars,” explains Daniel Baird, supervisor of Industrial Relations
Respiratory Care Unit.
Air-quality compliance monitoring, trend analysis and design
data were the initial uses for the AMMNET system. But it was
inevitable that the rest of the company would realize the value
of using the data collected from the weather towers, and
demand unsurprisingly increased rapidly.
Although the air-quality data remains confidential,
the weather data is now freely
available, reducing the cumbersome and
time-consuming request process originally
required through EPD. Dan Baird is pleased
to see the data more widely used. “Promoting
the data was always a double-edged sword
because we simply didn’t have the resources
to dedicate to a whole lot of requests. Now
that we have WeatherNow, anyone can get
the weather data they need for their decision
making, and we are freed up to concentrate
on our core responsibilities.”
Summer 2009 29