Petrobras and FOUNDATION for ROM

It's been a busy few weeks for us at the Fieldbus Foundation, and I haven't been blogging as often as usual, but you'll see a lot here in the coming weeks.  A few weeks ago the FOUNDATION for ROM demo team sat down with Petrobras at their very large and impressive Cenpes research facility outside of Rio.  Short for Centro de Pesquisas Leopoldo Américo Miguez de Mello, Cenpes serves as the heart of research and development for Petrobras.  It is the largest oil and gas related research center in the southern hemisphere.  Cenpes also houses several pilot plants for Petrobras, and it is on one of these pilot plants that we will be installing the first FOUNDATION for ROM field demo.

Petrobras Cenpes Research Facility

The demo will include the full functionality of ROM, including wireless devices integration, remote I/O integration, and wireless backhaul capability.  Petrobras is quite interested in ROM, which is a good fit for the ambitious projects that the company has scheduled or in progress for the upstream and downstream hydrocarbons industry.  As I have reported here before, Petrobras approved a  record shattering  $224 billion capital spending plan through 2015, and most do this money will be spent in the upstream sector on the highly publicized Pre-Salt area of the Santos Basin.  Evidence of the spending and development is all around, with Rio's harbor filled with offshore oil rigs and a large floating production and Storage Operation (FPSO) and other equipment.  We are fortunate to have a good demo team to work with and I look forward to reporting our progress in the near future.