Contracts & Projects Tracker: Who's doing business and where (November 09)

November 2009

SABIC and Linde Group have announced the first commercialisation of their jointly developed ?-SABLIN technology for producing linear alpha olefins (LAOs). Back in 2004 SABIC’s manufacturing affiliate Jubail United Petrochemical Co. awarded the contract to Linde for engineering, procurement and construction of the 150,000-metric-tons-per-year plant at Jubail on the Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia. The project was carried out by Linde’s subsidiary, Linde-KCA-Dresden GmbH, Germany, in cooperation with Linde Engineering in Pullach, Germany and SABIC’s Technology and Innovation organisation.The ? SABLIN manufacturing process uses ethylene as a feedstock for a one-stage homogeneous reaction that produces a wide range of high-purity LAOs.

BJ Services Co. has netted a contract with Eni SpA to carry out a range of well services in Italy: including acid stimulation services on a number of wells to maximise the inflow area of the wellbore in oil and gas formations throughout Italy, both onshore and offshore.

United Utilities is now using Veolia’s Hydrotech Discfilters at Holme, Kendal, Leigh, Glazebury and Coniston STW’s for tertiary solids removal following an initial installation at Windermere STW. The unit showed cost advantages compared to alternative processes when treating final effluent to better than 15mg/l TSS. Modules are also to be installed by South West Water at their Lanner St Day STW (30 L/s) and by Thames Water at Merstham STW (60 L/s). Both projects will be completed in 2010.

Three separate upgrades to the chemical dosing plant at Thames Water’s Hogsmill Sewage Treatment Works in Surbiton near Kingston-upon-Thames have improved efficiency acnd performance at the site and are also designed to meet the latest phosphate discharge consents into the River Thames. Working with partners, the upgrades were designed, built and installed by chemical dosing company Gee & Co.

Hertel Defence and Offshore (D&O) has recently signed a contract with BP to manufacture and install a Blast Resistant Office Building at its Rotterdam refinery. The building includes a number of Blast Resistant Modules (BRMs) which are joined on site. It will be similar to one which was successfully designed and delivered by Hertel D&O to the BP refinery in 2008. Hertel D&O has developed BRMs to provide a safe, efficient and cost-effective solution for explosion exposed areas within the process area.

VT Group has made its first foray into the sector of manufacturing parts for nuclear reactors by winning an order from British Energy to supply high integrity new reactor bio-thermal assemblies for the Dungeness power station. The contract represents a significant expansion of VT’s nuclear manufacturing capabilities, which have previously focused mainly on Intermediate Level Waste containers. VT will manufacture the biothermal units, which are used specifically for Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors, at its facility near Chester over a period to summer 2010. The units are critical items for British Energy as they are essential to ensuring continued operation of its Dungeness B facility.

Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Group Yulin Energy & Chemicals Co. has appointed AMEC for the development of the $3.3bn Jinbian Integrated Energy and Chemical project in Shaanxi Province in north-western China. The value of the multi-million dollar three-year contract has not been announced. AMEC is to provide project management services as part of an integrated project management team - its scope to include engineering management, project controls, contract management, HSE, QA, and construction management services. The new complex will have a production capacity of 1.8 million tonnes per annum (TPA) of methanol, 600,000 TPA methanol to olefin, with a 1.5 million TPA deep catalytic cracker, 80,000 TPA of ethylene, 600,000 TPA of polypropylene and 600,000 TPA of polyethylene. The main feedstocks will be coal, oil and gas.

Engineering support services group Redhall Group plc has secured new contracts at Sellafield and the Atomic Weapons Establishment with a total value of £10m. The group has received a £3.3m order under its four year Pond Furniture Framework contract to manufacture specialist nuclear storage containers for the Sellafield Fuel Handling Plant and infrastructure equipment for two new build projects, principally Evaporator D for Costain. It has also secured contracts totalling £6.7 million with the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston. This includes a £4.7m turnkey design, build and upgrade of control and electrical systems in the radiological areas, and a £2 million three year cross-site infrastructure framework agreement.

Shell Chemicals Ltd has announced the  start-up of its new world-scale monoethylene glycol (MEG) unit at the Shell Eastern Petrochemicals Complex in Singapore. The unit started up as initially planned. With a nameplate capacity of 750,000 tonnes of MEG per annum, it is one of the largest in the world. The Complex also includes a new 800,000 tonnes per annum ethylene cracker, a butadiene plant and modifications to Shell’s Bukom refinery, which are planned to start up in early 2010.

Kedrion Group and its Hungarian-controlled Human Bioplazma LLC. has awarded Foster Wheeler a contract for EPCM and commissioning/qualification supervision for the upgrading and expansion of a bulk plasma fractionation manufacturing facility at Gödöllö, Hungary. Kedrionis a biopharmaceutical company specialising in the development, manufacture and distribution of plasma-derived medicinal products. The contract consists of the upgrading and capacity expansion of an existing plasma fractionation plant in line with GMP, including the installation of a new production line. During the upgrading works, the existing line will remain in operation. The plant is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2011.

Alfa Laval has won a significant order to supply plate heat exchangers (PHEs) and filters for cooling duties in two new nuclear reactors scheduled for installation in China. Valued at around Euro28m, the equipment will be installed in a reactor island cooling system where sea water will be used to cool a closed loop cooling water circuit providing fresh cooling water to various parts of the reactor plant. China’s energy plan calls for an additional 700 GWe of electricity generating capacity to be installed by 2020, doubling its current capacity. Of this figure, roughly 5%, about 60 GWe, is to be provided by nuclear power plants which will entail doubling the current number of plants.

Mustang has recently completed a FEED study for a continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS) reliability project at BP’s Cherry Point, Washington refinery. Mustang evaluated the automation of BP’s CEMS to meet environmental agency compliance requirements and recommended improvements in environmental data management activities. The study assessed the value of PLC functions, DAQ and retention systems, custom applications, environmental data management systems and other tools applied to increase CEMS reliability across the refinery. Mustang also provided recommendations on network and data flow from the field instrumentation to the corporate enterprise business applications.

Aker Solutions has won a contract from Reliance Industries Ltd to provide support services to the MA-D6 and KG-D6 field developments located in Bay of Bengal, India. The $25m contract covers inspection, testing and maintenance of subsea equipment and tools for a period of three years. Aker Solutions has previously delivered subsea production systems to Reliance’s fast-track projects in the KG-D6 block. This latest contract extends the scope to cover lifecycle services.

Linde Group and the US company Algenol Biofuels LLC have agreed to collaborate in a joint development project to identify the optimum management of carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen (O2) for Algenol’s algae and photobioreactor technology. They will jointly develop cost-efficient technologies that capture, store, transport and supply CO2 for Algenol’s proprietary process for the production of third-generation (3G) biofuels out of carbon dioxide (CO2), salt water and algae, as well as remove oxygen from the photobioreactor. The research collaboration builds on a process developed by Algenol Biofuels and other partners to utilise algae, CO2, salt water and sunlight to directly produce 3G bioethanol and other 3G biofuels or biochemicals in photobioreactors.

SEW Eurodrive has announced a recently-won contract for replacement drives at a Yorkshire Water sewage treatment site in Rotherham. This extensive site was fitted with 42 aeration drives of various manufacture, age and reliability. Severe flooding in 2007 resulted in a significant number of failures of the gearboxes and motors installed on the site. Yorkshire Water decided to upgrade the whole site including the aerator drives at a total cost of £4.5m, and selected SEW Eurodrive as its partner for the modernisation of its Rotherham site. The project involved supplying 42 flange-mounted helical gearboxes with a maximum torque rating of 4000Nm, fitted with 11kW, two-speed, energy-efficient motors. Read PE article

ExxonMobil has extended a maintenance and modification contract with Aker Solutions, releasing a new option on an existing agreement. Work under the new option will last until December 2011. Aker Solutions estimates the contract value to be approximately NOK300-400 million. The original maintenance and modification contract with ExxonMobil was signed in December 1998. The contract had a duration of three years, and included seven options of two years each. This is the fifth option that ExxonMobil has exercised under this contract. Aker Solutions has carried out several large modifications for ExxonMobil over the last decade, including services on the production vessels Balder and Jotun A, as well as the platforms Jotun B and Ringhorne.

International Matex Tank Terminals (IMTT) in St. Rose, Louisiana has selected Solutia’s Therminol 55 synthetic heat transfer fluid for use in its 2009 major expansion project. Therminol has been used at this plant for over 30 years with the first system installed in the early 1970’s. Over the last 30 years, the site has gone through numerous expansions and this is just the latest and largest expansion project in the steady growth of IMTT in St. Rose. IMTT is a privately held company that is a world-class provider of bulk liquid handling services.

 Foster Wheeler has announced that a joint venture of its Global Engineering and Construction Group, with partner WorleyParsons Services Pty Ltd, has been awarded a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract by Woodside for Train 2 and Train 3 of the Pluto liquefied natural gas (LNG) Project in Australia. The contract also includes an option for early EPCm services. The contract value for this award was not disclosed. The FEED is expected to be completed in the second half of 2010.

SEW Eurodrive has announced a recently-won contract for replacement drives at a Yorkshire Water sewage treatment site in Rotherham. This extensive site was fitted with 42 aeration drives of various manufacture, age and reliability. Severe flooding in 2007 resulted in a significant number of failures of the gearboxes and motors installed on the site. Yorkshire Water decided to upgrade the whole site including the aerator drives at a total cost of £4.5m, and selected SEW Eurodrive as its partner for the modernisation of its Rotherham site. The project involved supplying 42 flange-mounted helical gearboxes with a maximum torque rating of 4000Nm, fitted with 11kW, two-speed, energy-efficient motors. Read PE article

b has extended a maintenance and modification contract with Aker Solutions, releasing a new option on an existing agreement. Work under the new option will last until December 2011. Aker Solutions estimates the contract value to be approximately NOK300-400 million. The original maintenance and modification contract with ExxonMobil was signed in December 1998. The contract had a duration of three years, and included seven options of two years each. This is the fifth option that ExxonMobil has exercised under this contract. Aker Solutions has carried out several large modifications for ExxonMobil over the last decade, including services on the production vessels Balder and Jotun A, as well as the platforms Jotun B and Ringhorne.

International Matex Tank Terminals (IMTT) in St. Rose, Louisiana has selected Solutia’s Therminol 55 synthetic heat transfer fluid for use in its 2009 major expansion project. Therminol has been used at this plant for over 30 years with the first system installed in the early 1970’s. Over the last 30 years, the site has gone through numerous expansions and this is just the latest and largest expansion project in the steady growth of IMTT in St. Rose. IMTT is a privately held company that is a world-class provider of bulk liquid handling services.

Peel Energy has today confirmed that the consortium it had formed with DONG Energy and RWE npower is no longer a runner in the UK Government’s Carbon Capture and Storage Demonstration Competition. Owen Michaelson, chairman of Peel Energy, said the company would continue to seek EU or UK funding to support the deployment of commercial scale carbon capture and storage technology as part of a new power station at Hunterston. PE article

Compressed air products and process systems supplier Thorite has worked with paint manufacturer PPG Architectural Coatings UK Ltd, to upgrade the efficiency of its Birstall, West Yorkshire production plant. Old diaphragm pumps were replaced and the fluid distribution pipework layout improved. These changes, twinned with a much more effective compressed air supply, are intended to ensure that the Thorite-supplied ARO EXP diaphragm pumps operate at optimal performance and that the plant meets increasing customer demand, but with significantly reduced energy costs.

Woodsidehas awarded KBR a FEED contract for train 2 and train 3 of Woodside’s Pluto LNG Project. The contract also includes an option for early engineering, procurement and construction management services. The Pluto Train 2 and 3 development is being undertaken as an expansion of the onshore LNG plant at Woodside’s Pluto LNG Park located near Karratha in Western Australia. The Pluto foundation project onshore facilities, including a single LNG processing train with forecast LNG capacity of 4.3 million tonnes per year (mtpa), storage facilities and an export jetty, are currently under construction.

Imtech has recently signed long-term technical maintenance contracts worth over Euro30 million. These include contracts at TNT Post, Eindhoven University of Technology and the University of Amsterdam, as well as at the Anheuser-Busch InBev brewery in Belgium. For Anheuser-Busch InBev, Imtech has acquired the expansion of an existing maintenance contract, for the maintenance of air and climate technology in various breweries in Belgium. Imtech will also carry out a number of maintenance assignments - within an existing framework agreement for technical maintenance and management - in several buildings in Leuven.

Air Products has gained a long-term supply contract and plans to build a new world-scale hydrogen production plant featuring technology advancements to maximize facility energy efficiency and emission reductions to serve ExxonMobil’s (Esso) Rotterdam refinery in The Netherlands and additional customers in the region. The facility, which will be connected to Air Products’ extensive Rotterdam hydrogen pipeline network system, is expected to be on-stream in second half of 2011.. Air Products is currently building a new world scale hydrogen production facility which will supply ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge, Louisiana facility, and also has a hydrogen pipeline supply agreement with ExxonMobil’s Baytown, Texas refinery.

Vacuum technology company Edwards has supplied a two module dry pump steel degassing system to Tenova Core as part of a secondary metallurgical facility for McConway and Torley (M&T), a steel foundry in Eastern Pennsylvania, US, which is part of Trinity Industries Group. The steel degassing system forms part of a ladle refining and vacuum degassing station which Tenova Core has installed at M&T. Tenova Core purchased the Edwards system based on its previous experience of working with the company’s degassing technology.

Aker Solutions has gained notice to proceed by TransCanada Corp. the construction of a 900MW natural gas-fired combined cycle power plant in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. Under a joint venture, Aker Construction Canada Ltd, a subsidiary of Aker Solutions ASA, and HDR Corp. will execute EPC work on the project in cooperation with TransCanada. The contract value to Aker Solutions is approximately CAD$400 million. TransCanada will build, own and operate the Oakville Generating Station, having secured a 20-year clean energy supply contract with the Ontario Power Authority. TransCanada expects to invest approximately CAD $1.2 billion in the natural gas-fired combined cycle power station. The project commences immediately and is due to start producing power by the end of 2013.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has received a contract from Suncor Energy to provide project management, engineering and procurement services to complete the scoping study and Design Basis Memorandum (DBM) for tailings and water transfer projects. These projects are a portion of the Tailings Reduction Operations (TRO) implementation at Suncor’s oil sands mining, extraction and upgrading facility located 30 kilometers north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. Officials did not disclose the contract value. TRO is Suncor’s new initiative to implement a Mature Fine Tailings (MFT) drying process, which results in the dry material to be reclaimed in place or moved to another location for final reclamation. The process helps achieve a dryer landscape in a shorter period of time and allows for accelerated reclamation timelines, shrinking the environmental footprint of oil sands mining operations.

Air Liquide has commissioned the world’s largest carbon monoxide unit, handing it over to the customer, Saudi International Petrochemicals Co. (Sipchem). This new carbon monoxide unit is located on the industrial complex of Jubail City, in eastern Saudi Arabia, near the Arabic Gulf. This project was awarded in 2006 to Air Liquide and Lurgi. The unit will have a production capacity of 335,000 tonnes per year. Production of carbon monoxide requires very high temperature technologies (+ 1200°C) as well as very low cryogenic temperature (-190°C). Carbon monoxide produced in the unit will primarily serve as feedstock for the production of acetic acid used for the production of polyvinyl acetate.

Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies has been awarded a £10m-plus contract by the 4D consortium for Southern Water’s Peacehaven WwTW. The new works, the last major sewage treatment works to be built in the UK to meet the requirements of the Urban Wastewater Directive, will treat domestic wastewater from a population equivalent of circa 335,000. Veolia’s contract includes pre treatment by fat, oil, grit and grease removal, primary treatment by Multiflo lamella clarifiers and Biostyr Biological Aerated Flooded Filter for combined secondary treatment. Veolia’s site work will begin in 2010 with completion by 2013.

Babcock International Group has completed its acquisition of UKAEA Ltd, the commercial arm of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. UKAEA has capabilities in waste categorisation, decommissioning of high hazard facilities, encapsulation and storage of hazardous materials and transportation of waste. It is also the parent body organisation responsible to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority for the decommissioning of sites at Dounreay in Caithness, Harwell in Oxfordshire and Winfrith in Dorset.

Drax has entered into a further agreement with Centrica to provide 300MW of baseload power for a five-year period commencing October 2010, equating to around 13.1TWh of power. The agreement provides Drax with fixed dark green spreads consistent with its trading strategy. Drax will supply power at agreed prices which include Centrica paying Drax for coal, based on international coal prices, and delivering matching CO2 allowances. The volume of this baseload contract is equivalent to a load factor of about 8% for the period Oct 2010 to Sept 2015. Dorothy Thompson, chief executive of Drax said: “This not only gives Drax options over how and when to dispatch power but is also consistent with our progressive hedging policy. Moreover, locking in dark green spreads out to 2015 clearly demonstrates that there is appetite for deals beyond 2012”.

The Environment Agency has installed voltage power optimisation (VPO) units from powerPerfector units across 33 of its sites. The estimated effect to these buildings will be a 12 % reduction in carbon emissions per year and energy savings totaling up to £200,000 - meaning the initiative will have paid for itself within three to four years. Graham Ledward, director of resources at the Environment Agency said: “The UK has a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. This is a difficult but vital task if we are to prevent severe climate change. However, improved environmental performance does not have to mean increased costs. In fact, good environmental performance makes business sense because it can cut costs.”

KBR has been awarded a contract by Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Co. to develop and implement an operator training simulator (OTS) for its grassroots phenol plant in Saudi Arabia. KBR, which is also the technology licensor for the phenol plant, will develop a customised simulator for the initial training of SAUDI KAYAN phenol plant operators and for continual refresher training after plant startup. The overall system will consist of custom dynamic models developed by KBR that will mimic the actual behavior of the phenol plant. The models will be connected to a set of dedicated control system hardware and operator consoles that will allow plant operators to train in a realistic environment without disrupting normal plant operations.

Another relic of Dounreay’s past is about to be consigned to history. The original ventilation stack from the Dounreay Fast Reactor is about to be decontaminated and cut up. Measuring 28 metres in length and weighing almost 24 tonnes, the stack served as the exhaust for the ventilation system in DFR during its operational days. PE Article

The final phase of a Yorkshire Water investment to protect Hull from flooding, is underway as engineers start installation of new storm pumps at the city’s West Hull Pumping Station. Investment at the station began in the wake of the storms in 2007 and, as well as an upgrade of the existing pumps as a temporary measure, electrics were overhauled to protect both East and West Hull Pumping Stations from power cuts while underground inlet channels - filled with concrete as part of revamp of the city’s sewerage system in 2000 - were reopened to increase the stations’ capacity in the event of severe storms. Giant new pumps were also ordered from specialist manufacturers and, after an 18-month construction period, the machinery has arrived in the UK and has been transported to Hull for installation.

KBR has won contract from Chevron USA Inc. for the FEED of the topsides for the proposed Big Foot development facility, in the Walker Ridge Block 29 of the Gulf of Mexico - owned by Chevron USA Inc. (operator), Statoil Gulf of Mexico LLC and Marubeni Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. The proposed facility will be installed in 5,300 feet of water about 200 miles from New Orleans and 35 miles south of Chevron’s producing Tahiti field. The goal is to develop Big Foot with a dry-tree floating drilling and production facility. KBR will provide engineering and project management services to develop the process design; specify the required equipment; layout, modularize and integrate the decks; perform the necessary structural analyses; and provide the electrical power generation and distribution system designed to support the platform and the downhole electrical submersible pump requirements.

Equipment from Filling Solutions Ltd of Nottingham has been installed by Colorplas Ltd of Rochdale, UK., to provide almost continuous filling of base resin from road tankers into IBC’s - avoiding the cost of installing expensive fire-proof bulk storage tanks. Many companies purchase chemicals in 1 tonne intermediate bulk containers (IBC’s) to avoid the cost of installing large and expensive bulk storage tanks. These tanks often need fire-proofing, lagging, trace heating as well as large bund walls - depending upon the nature of the chemical. Consequently suppliers charge a premium for the chemical. Now Colorplas enjoy bulk purchase prices without having had to install a large bulk storage tank. Colorplas manufactures pigment dispersions and gelcoat products for the construction, automotive and marine industries. PE article

INEOS Bio has started a feasibility study for a plant to convert locally generated biodegradable household and commercial wastes into carbon neutral road transport fuel and clean electricity, using the INEOS Bio technology process. The findings will inform an investment decision in 2010 for the construction of the initial commercial phase of a bio-ethanol plant at Seal Sands in the Tees Valley, and a fully integrated bio-refinery by 2015. PEArticle

German PVC manufacturer Vinnolit GmbH & Co. KG is employing HIMax, a new safety system from HIMA Paul Hildebrandt GmbH + Co KG to safeguard the chlorine production process at its Gendorf facility. The safety system, which features a total redundancy concept, is claimed to guarantee the continuous operation of the chlorine plant. PE article

Peterborough Renewable Energy Ltd (PREL) has promised a landfill-free future after getting the Government go-ahead to build the first ‘energy park’ in the UK that will take mixed waste and recycle and remanufacture every single element to produce renewable energy, glass, building blocks, metals and compounds. PE article

RWE npower and E.ON UK have announced more details of their nuclear joint venture which is progressing plans for the development of a new nuclear power station at Wylfa on Anglesey. The JV, which will be called Horizon Nuclear Power (HNP), has secured development land at Wylfa and also at Oldbury-on-Severn in South Gloucestershire enabling a programme of new nuclear power station development to begin that could involve over £15bn of investment. The 50:50 venture aims to develop around 6,000MW of new nuclear capacity in the UK by 2025, with the first reactor due online around 2020. HNP will begin operation from 16 Nov working from a HQ near Gloucester. E.ON and RWE have interests in 23 nuclear reactors in Germany and Sweden, including two jointly owned reactors at Gundremmingen and one at Lingen.

Air Liquide has signed a long-term contract with Yutianhua, Shaanxi Yulin Natural Gas Chemical Industry. Under the deal, Air Liquide will invest about €60 million in a new large Air Separation Unit (ASU) - with a production capacity of 2,700 tonnes of oxygen per day - to supply oxygen and nitrogen to Yutianhua. The ASU, designed and built by Air Liquide Hangzhou, the Air Liquide engineering centre in China, will use Air Liquide’s latest technologies providing both high reliability and energy efficiency. Yutianhua, a natural gas based methanol player in China, has a current production capacity of 510 thousand tonnes per year. In 2008, Yutianhua launched an additional 600 thousand tonnes per year methanol coal-based project with a total investment of 3 billion RMB. This is the first phase of a major methanol project. Its unit is located in Yuheng Chemical Industrial Park of Yulin City, Shaanxi Province. Air Liquide’s new ASU will be located next to the Yutianhua site.

The European pharmaceutical industry is continuing to invest structurally in new technology, according to technical services company Imtech has recently won contracts totalling around Euro31 million with various pharma companies in the region. The company claims technical leadership in the fields of air treatment, clean room solutions, energy technology, electrical engineering and instrumentation. PE article

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms is collaborating with Critical Power Consultants (CPC), a Roanoke, Virginia-based company that specializes in emergency standby power control systems, load management control systems, and monitoring solutions. CPC offers a host of technical services to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), engineering firms, and end users that require quick, responsive engineering services for critical power systems. The company has chosen PACSystems RX3i controllers for true dual redundancy data synchronization and automatic switchover for continuous operations.

BP and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) have signed a contract with Iraq’s state-owned South Oil Company (SOC) to expand production from the Rumaila oilfield, near Basra in southern Iraq. The signing follows BP’s bid for the contract with CNPC in June. The consortium, led by BP with partners CNPC and Iraq government representative State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO), has agreed to nearly triple the Rumaila field’s output to almost three million barrels of oil a day (b/d), making it the world’s second largest producing oilfield. BP and CNPC plan to invest approximately $15bn (£9.2bn) in cash over the 20-year lifetime of the contract, with the intention of increasing production to 2.85 million b/d in the second half of the next decade. Costs will start to be recovered, and fees of $2 a barrel earned on the incremental oil production once production has been raised by 10 per cent from its current level of about one million b/d. “The investment in Rumaila will support Iraq in achieving its ambition of becoming a major player in global oil markets once again,¹ said BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward.

Emerson Process Management has been selected by Korea Southern East Power Co. (KOSEP) to install its Ovation control system at two power generation facilities in Korea: the MuJu Pumped Storage Power Plant (PSPP) and Yecheon PSPP. The two projects, awarded under a single contract, are part of KOSEP’s long-term electric power development program designed to support increased power demand in Korea. More details

DavyMarkhamof Sheffield, is nearing completion of two 40ft diameter cutterheads, which will be fitted to the front ends of tunnel boring machines being built by Robbins Co. of Ohio, for a major railroad tunnel project in China. Each 226-tonne cutterhead will be despatched in modular components to the company’s TBM assembly facility near Chendu, Sichuan Province, home of the giant panda. After the machines have been assembled and tested in the factory, they will be disassembled and sent to a remote location in Gansu Province, where the TBMs and cutterheads will be reassembled by local labour. As part of the reduced lead time, DavyMarkham is fabricating the cutterheads in the fastest time ever, by recruiting additional contract welders, effectively doubling its skilled welding resource, and working 3 shifts, 6 days a week. The contract is valued at £2.7 million ex works.

Safety systems integrator Hima-Sella has won a contract from DSM Nutritional Products (UK) Ltd to design and supply safety instrumented systems (SIS) and human machine interface (HMI) status indication matrices for its Vitamin C and Calpan production site in Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland. Hima-Sella will design, engineer, manufacture and install three SIS, which use HIMA¹s proven HIQuad technology platform with safe ethernet. This solution allows remote control locations to pass safety related signals to a central control room so avoiding the expense of installing multi core cables throughout the plant. These three systems represent the first phase of the Process Safety Instrument Systems Modernisation project and will oversee safe operation on the production buildings within the Vitamin C and Calpan plant areas.

SABIC Innovative Plastics is implementing GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms’ work process management software system, Proficy Workflow in its Lexan factory in Bergen op Zoom, The Netherlands. SABIC Innovative Plastics will use the system to connect and organize people and work processes to drive Lean production initiatives – easing decision making on the plant floor and reducing costs. The Lexan factory in The Netherlands produces more then 2 million kilograms of plastics per week serving various industries, e.g. automotive, construction sheets, mobile phones and medical appliances.