AVEVA World Magazine 2011|Issue 203Reshaping the world's energy suppliesThere is a song that tells us that money makes the world go around, but what really matters is energy, the foundation of everyday life. And it's maintaining the world's energy supply in the face of relentlessly increasing demand, the drying up of easy oil, and serious environmental concerns that provides engineering's biggest challenges. As you will read in this issue, however, these challenges are being met, by our customers and through AVEVA's continued development of new and more powerful enabling technologies.There are those who predict a global economic collapse 'when the oil runs out', but this is to denigrate the considerable ingenuity of the scientists and engineers who work in the energy industries. Certainly, oil & gas are becoming harder to extract, but there are still huge reserves to be tapped. Engineering is advancing our capabilities to reach them while, at the same time, helping us to become much smarter in our consumption of precious resources. This magazine regularly presents examples of AVEVA customers delivering ever more advanced oil & gas projects. But the world is rightly looking towards other sources of energy and the long-term future will see a more balanced mix.Our customer success stories already reflect this trend, with impressive developments in a variety of renewable energy projects and continued advances in the nuclear industry. It is easy to overlook the fact that these new energy sources are enabled by the use of technologies which have been, to a large extent, developed and proven in the oil & gas industry. In this as in other ways, the fossil-fuel industries have catalysed industrial development and raised engineering capabilities so that we can confidently tackle innovative new energy projects and progressively reduce our dependence on a single source.Good illustrations of this are provided in this issue, where we look at recent customer achievements in the renewables sector. Because such energy sources are of low intensity, in order to make them economically viable it is vital to minimise the capital and lifecycle costs of their exploitation. It is no coincidence that many of the most advanced renewables projects are being created using AVEVA technology, where its industry-leading productivity helps to achieve low cost and rapid delivery. It is therefore particularly pleasing to read of Technip's notable achievements in wind energy projects, which combine their offshore oil platform expertise with the power of AVEVA Marine.On the subject of energy, world attention has been focused on the impact of the recent Japanese tsunami on the Fukushima nuclear power plants, and on the wider implications for the nuclear industry. AVEVA has had a long and close relationship with this industry and I would like to publicly acknowledge the support which our colleagues in Japan have provided to customers during this difficult time. Despite such setbacks, nuclear energy will continue to play an increasing role and AVEVA remains committed to supporting its nuclear customers as they tackle the new technical and regulatory requirements which will no doubt soon emerge.Engineering is a barometer of global trends and, because so much of the world's engineering relies on AVEVA technology, to see the encouragingly healthy state of this barometer you need look no further than AVEVA's sustained growth and the customer successes described in this magazine. That's what makes AVEVA World Magazine such an authoritative source, as well as a really inspiring read!Richard LongdonChief ExecutiveAVEVA Group plc'Engineering is a barometer of global trends and, because so much of the world's engineering relies on AVEVA technology, to see the encouragingly healthy state of this barometer you need look no further than AVEVA's sustained growth and the customer successes described in this magazine...'

Promon Engenharia invests in AVEVA NET for Latin American growthPromon Engenharia selected AVEVA NET as its information management solution after running a comprehensive three-month benchmark programme which compared AVEVA NET with competing systems. AVEVA completed the programme in just one month, outperforming the competition on technology and time of implementation.Promon Engenharia belongs to the Promon Group in Brazil. The core business of Promon Engenharia is the design, integration and implementation of complete infrastructure solutions (EPC and turnkey contracts) for key economic sectors such as power, oil & gas, mining and metallurgy, chemicals and petrochemicals, process industries, infrastructure, and logistics and transportation.Rogerio Pinto, Systems Manager at Promon Engenharia explains, 'We implemented AVEVA NET to change the way project information was managed and accessed across all our operations. Many of our clients have clear requirements as to which engineering tools should be used for their projects, and we use engineering solutions from many vendors, including AVEVA, Intergraph, Bentley and Siemens.'A complex engineering environment'Our engineering environment is usually very complex,' continues Rogerio Pinto. 'Each separate engineering tool was communicating individually with the procurement, financial, construction and management systems. There were several disadvantages with this architecture. A large number of interfaces had to be developed and maintained for each separate project, and this created both multiple points of failure and significant ongoing cost.'04AVEVA World Magazine 2011|Issue 2A delayed coking unit for the REPAR Petrobras refinery at the city of Araucária, in the state of Paraná in Brazil. Photograph courtesy of Promon Engenharia.