Contracts & Projects Tracker: April 2011

INEOS Oxide is considering plans to invest in new ethylene oxide (EO) – at least 500ktpa – and EO derivatives and glycol capacity, probably in the US Gulf. Meanwhile, INEOS said construction of a new 1,000ktpa ethylene terminal, at its Zwijndrecht facilities in Belgium is “progressing well”. Operation of the new deep-sea terminal is to start in 2012.

ExxonMobil Iraq Ltd, together with the South Oil Co. of Iraq and co-venturers Shell West Qurna BV and Oil Exploration Co. of Iraq, have announced a ’production milestone’ in the redevelopment of the West Qurna I oil field in Southern Iraq. Initial field production of 244,000bpd has now increased to 285,000bpd, which exceeds the 10% improved production target established under the technical services contract.

BASF has gained Chinese approval for a Euro860m, 400ktpa MDI (diphenylmethane diisocyanate) project in Chongqing, China, to start up by 2014. It will comprise an MDI plant, a nitrobenzene plant and an aniline plant, and cover 40 hectares: forming the hub of an integrated chemical complex operated by the Chongqing (Changshou) Chemical Industry Park.

Statoil has awarded Nexans a Euro18m contract to design, engineer and manufacture the static and dynamic subsea umbilicals for the 20 km tie back system connecting the new Gygrid field development to the existing Njord A installation off the Norwegian Continental shelf. The Gygrid field contains 23m barrels of recoverable oil equivalents.

Holcim is employing a Duroprotect 5 rotary valve, from Coperion, in a cement-conveying system at its Merone, Italy facilities. The valve, which has a ceramic-lined housing with tungsten-carbide welded rotor, replaced a screw pump feeding a conveying system at 130 t/hr and backpressure of 0.7 to 1 bar. The installed power required for the rotary valve was 5.5kW, instead of 200kW for the screw pump.

Aker Solutions has delivered the 100th subsea tree to the world’s largest subsea field development - Statoil’s Troll. A subsea tree is an advanced set of valves used to control the flow of oil and gas directly from a subsea well to a processing facility. The Troll field, in the northern part of the North Sea, contains 40% of the total gas reserves on the Norwegian continental shelf.

Alfa Laval has won an SEK75m order to supply its Packinox heat exchangers to a refinery in Saudi Arabia, for delivery in 2012. The units will be used in a catalytic reforming unit for production of gasoline.

Aker Solutions has signed an NOK200m contract with Statoil to supply control umbilicals to the Norne field in the Northern part of the North Sea.
The scope of work for the Fossekall-Dompap project includes a control umbilical system with 26km of dynamic and static sections. The control umbilicals provide hydraulic, electrical and fibre optic functions for three planned four-slot templates and have a 2.5-inch MEG line for hydrate prevention and inhibition during shutdowns.

Tate & Lyle and San Diego-based Genomatica are to jointly develop production of Genomatica’s Bio-BDO (1,4-butanediol). T&L will dedicate a demo facility in Decatur, Illinois, for Genomatica to scale-up of the process. Engineering of the facility is underway and fermentations are expected to begin in Q2/11 with full-integrated plant operations in Q3/11.

The Dutch DCMR Environmental Protection Agency has selected Flir Advanced Thermal Solutions’ GF320 optical gas imaging camera for inspection and law-enforcement tasks. The environmental agency covers Rijnmond, the larger ’Port of Rotterdam’ area. Read more

Qatar Petroleum and operator Shell have announced the first flow of dedicated offshore gas into the Pearl GTL plant, in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar. Shell has opened natural gas wells offshore allowing the first sour gas to flow through a subsea pipeline into the onshore plant. Pearl GTL comprises two offshore platforms 60km off the Qatar coast, connected by pipeline to the gas to liquids (GTL) plant. It will eventually produce 1.6bn cubic feet of gas per day, which will be processed to generate 120k bpd of condensate and natural gas liquids and 140k bpd of GTL products.

Metso is supplying SIA Graanul Invest with a biomass CHP plant with automation system under a Euro15m order. The plant, in Launkalne, Latvia will utilise bubbling fluidised bed technology, with bark and wood chips or milled peat as the main fuels. It will produce 15MW of heat and 6.4MW of electricity for SIA’s own pellet factory and the national grid.

AMEC has won a £32m EPC contract with Teesside Gas and Liquids Processing (TGLP) to modify and extend the Teesside Gas Processing Plant (TGPP) at Seal Sands, Middlesbrough, UK. Completion is scheduled in April 2012, and, the work will allow the TGPP facility to receive natural gas from operator RWE Dea’s Breagh field, one of the North Sea’s largest recent gas discoveries, about 100km southeast of Teesside.

A stainless steel plant in Sheffield is set to save £300k a year on its fume extraction energy costs following its recent installation of four ABB variable-speed drives. Outokumpu Stainless operates a stainless melting and continuous casting facility at its Sheffield site, producing around 260,000 tonnes of stainless steel a year in a mixture of slab bloom and billet. Read more

United Utilities has awarded Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. a four-year contract, worth $2.5-3m, to provide AMP5 topographical and utility surveying services. The contract, which includes a two-year extension option, covers topographical, hydrographical and measured building surveys, utility location/mapping, 3D laser scanning surveys, deformation monitoring, GPS network design and high-spec 3D model drawings.

Foster Wheeler has been awarded a detail design contract by Enbridge Offshore Facilities LLC for the deepwater Walker Ridge Gathering System export gas pipelines and the deepwater Big Foot export oil pipeline located in the Walker Ridge area of the Gulf of Mexico. FW’s work on the design contract is expected to be completed during Q2/11.

Vivergo Fuels Ltd has terminated a contract with Redhall Engineering Solutions Ltd for the fabrication and installation of pipework for a new £200-million bioethanol plant on the BP Saltend site, near Hull. Read more

Saudi Aramco and PetroChina Co. Ltd, part of CNPC, have signed an MoU for the planned development of a 10m tpa (200k bpd) grassroots full conversion refinery in Yunnan Province, China. Saudi Aramco will supply the project company with up to 200k bpd of Arabian crude oil via a long-term contract. PetroChina will contribute its refined products retail network assets in the targeted market to the project.

Galliford Try plc, in partnership with Imtech Process Ltd, has been awarded a £33m contract by Northumbrian Water to design and build an anaerobic digestion plant at Howdon sewage treatment works in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The project is due for completion by September 2012.

The Chinese government has given final approval for a JV between Q8 and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) to build a world-class refinery and petrochemical complex in south China. The $9bn refinery project on Donghai Island, near Zhanjiang City in Guangdong Province, is due to be operational from 2014/15. The site will process Kuwaiti crude oil, with a refining capacity of 300,000 bpd, and also includes a 1,000ktpa ethylene plant.

MOL is deploying Infotechnics’s Opralog operational shift-logging software at its Danube refinery in Hungary. The data tool is said to provide a flexible and configurable platform to capture and report on key operational data. MOL is moving away from paper-based systems and wants to standardise how operational information is collected and reported across its plants.

CB&I is to provide FEED services for the Yamal LNG LLC project, by Q1/12. The project comprises production, treatment, transportation, liquefaction and shipping of natural gas and natural gas liquids from the South Tambey field in northern Siberia, where gas reserves are estimated at over 1trn cubic meters. CB&I’s scope includes FEED for a 16,5000ktpa LNG liquefaction plant, including transportation and storage facilities.

Saudi Aramco has selected Samsung Engineering Co. Ltd to perform the EPC work for all four lump sum turnkey contracts on its major Shaybah natural gas liquids (NGL) programme. Read more

Uhde GmbH has started construction of what, it believes, will be the world’s first skid-mounted chlor-alkali electrolysis plant.Epoxy resin producer Leuna-Harze GmbH selected Uhde to build a turnkey membrane electrolysis plant with a capacity of 15ktpa of chlorine. Commissioning is planned for mid-2012. Read more

Aker Solutions has signed an NOK5.5bn, EPC contract with ConocoPhillips to deliver the topside and bridges of the production platform for the Eldfisk 2/7 S, in the North Sea, by early 2014. The award is subject to Norwegian authorities’ approval of the plan. The topside comprises a combined living quarter and utility module and a combined process and wellhead module. The contract also includes the fabrication of two bridges, one bridge  support modules and a flare.

Shell Global Solutions International BV and Sulzer Chemtech Ltd have extended an existing agreement making the Sulzer unit world-wide licensee for Shell’s high capacity tray and phase separation technology. The collaboration has been widened to support and formalise joint development of new mass transfer and separation equipment.

Engineering firm Jee has performed a conceptual design study for National Grid on the feasibility of a carbon capture and storage pipeline, transporting CO2 from industrial emitters in the east of England to the southern North Sea. Jee evaluated potential facility options at the proposed storage location and carried out studies on wall thickness design, fishing interaction, pipeline protection, stability requirements, flow assurance, corrosion, umbilical cross section, stakeholder planning, crossing design, and overall cost modelling.

Klinger UK is investing £2m to meet increasing demand for metallic and non-metallic gaskets at home and overseas, including from the pharma, food and nuclear sectors. The investment will add precision cutting technology and testing facilities at the firm’s Bradford manufacturing facility and service centres in Middlesbrough and Aberdeen, and create 10 engineering, technical support and customer service jobs.

Northumbrian Water is spending £3m to upgrade its Seaton Carew headworks, which, serves up to 100k people in the Hartlepool area. Paul Wood, NW’s project manager, said: “Work at Seaton Carew headworks, which will hopefully be completed by December this year, will involve replacing, modifying and upgrading various processes and assets. The reliability of the works will be improved and the risk of mechanical failure, which can result in flooding … will be reduced.”

Aker Solutions subsidiary STEP Offshore has delivered a drilling fluid circulation and well control system to Rolls-Royce Marine. The skid-mounted system will be used on the Talisman Energy-led Yme oil field project in the North Sea. It is designed for easy transportation to and from the well-head platform, with instant easy hook-up to a work-over unit for well intervention operations.

Buoyed by strong demand fundamentals in world energy markets, Shell is planning to deliver over $100bn in net capital investments the next four years: earmarking a spend of some $25-$27bn per year for 2011-14. Read more

Petróleos de Venezuela and Haldor Topsøe have signed a contract for the Centro de Refinación Paraguaná project, which includes an 85k bpd hydrotreating unit - two trains with four hydrotreating reactors to produce ultra low sulphur diesel containing less than 10 wt ppm sulphur. Topsøe will supply an engineering design package for the hydrotreaters, including design of the reactors, basic engineering, catalysts and detailed design of the proprietary reactor internals.

Wood Group GTS has signed a five-year operations & maintenance agreement with Newcrest Mining Ltd, Australia’s largest gold producer. It covers mobilisation and complete care, custody and control services for the primary and secondary power stations at Newcrest’s Telfer Gold Mine in Western Australia. The primary plant is a 138MWnatural gas/diesel-fired unit with three GE LM6000 PC gas turbines. The 13MW secondary plant is a diesel-fired facility with six reciprocating diesel engines.

Premium Renewable Energy (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd will use Honeywell company Envergent’s rapid thermal processing (RTP) technology to convert palm biomass to renewable heat and electricity. An initial Premium RTP facility, to be completed in early 2013, will produce a clean-burning liquid biofuel derived from biomass. Premium expects that the first facility will be followed by additional RTP units to be built by 2020.

CB&I has been awarded an EPC contract by Imperial Oil Resources on the Kearl oil sands project in Alberta, Canada. The value of CB&I’s work scope is over $900m, which includes $500m of incremental work releases booked prior to 2011. CB&I will lead the EPC execution of the bitumen extraction plant and tank farms, as well as the design, supply and construction of additional storage vessels, all of which are expected to be completed in Q3/12.

KBR is to provide licensing, basic engineering and related training and field services for a Inner Mongolia Connell Chemical Industry Co. Ltd (Connell) grassroots aniline plant inTongLiao, Inner Mongolia, China. The aniline technology is offered by KBR via a licensing alliance with DuPont. KBR will license the main process for Connell’s 360ktpa aniline plant. This follows an award of the aniline technology to KBR earlier in 2010 by Connell for its 150ktpa plant in Jilin City, China.

UWT UK Ltd. has supplied a continuous level monitoring system for a new Aberdeen Grain barley drying plant at its Whiterashes site in Aberdeenshire. Three 420-tonne silos provide a drying capacity of 7000t of feed grain and 3000t of malting barley. The volume of each silo must be monitored in real time and with complete accuracy during filling and discharge. Use of UWT’s Nivowave NW5015 acoustic wave level measurement system on each silo addressed issues such as caking, dust, explosive environment and diverse grain sizes.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has won a contract with the Jubail Chemical Industrial Co. Ltd (JANA), to provide technical and project management services for its existing epichlorohydrin (ECH) plant expansion and a new ECH plant at the Jubail, Saudi Arabia site – towards upping the site’s epoxy resin capacity to 240ktpa. Jacob’s scope includes debottlenecking of the existing plant, utilities and tankage area services, and cost estimates for the new ECH plant.

The city of Woodland, California has retrofit the headworks and return activated sludge systems at its water pollution control facility with five stainless steel Siemens Internalift pumps. The pumps replaced their more than 25-year-old carbon steel predecessors. The new pumps’ design is expected to be more corrosion-resistant, thus increasing longevity. The turnkey operation is valued at over $1m, with Siemens providing equipment and installation.

Kemira’s UK facility in Bradford, which manufactures organic flocculants for use in the water-treatment industry, was experiencing poor performance from a dissolved oxygen (DO) measurement system, so replaced it with a Mettler Toledo system to help reduce maintenance costs. Read more

US group Valero Energy Corp. is to acquire Chevron’s Pembroke refinery in Wales for $730m. The deal, which includes extensive marketing and logistics assets in the UK and Ireland. is to close in the third quarter of 2011, subject to regulatory approvals. Read more

L and N, based in Aberdeen, Scotland, is to manufacture 32 subsea control products on behalf of GE Vetco Gray for use in offshore subsea projects in Brazil. This is the first time the company has been commissioned for work destined for a South American oil-and-gas-producing region.

Westinghouse Electric has awarded Emerson contracts worth around $17m to supply its Ovation expert control technology at four AP1000 nuclear reactors in China. Ovation control systems, or predecessors, are installed at most existing Westinghouse nuclear reactors. Read more

Bayer MaterialScience is planning a Euro100m expansion of its MDI (diphenylmethane diisocyanate) plant in Brunsbüttel, Germany, by 2015-16. The project is part of a phased programme, which also involves building a 300ktpa TDI (toluene diisocyanate) plant in Dormagen, Germany, to come on stream in 2014. An existing MDI plant in Brunsbüttel will subsequently be expanded from 200ktpa to 420ktpa - in part by converting a TDI plant at the site.

EDF has signed a renewal contract with AREVA NDE Solutions France for the maintenance and inspections of steam generators tubing. The six-year contract, with options for three more years, covers the inspection of around 35-40 steam generators per year. AREVA will deploy “unique load-bearing for inspection and plugging tools” that avoids human action in the water chamber and can raise productivity from 30% to 50% depending on the type of inspection.

Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) has made a “significant” deepwater oil discovery in Brunei coastal waters. The discovery, named Geronggong, is 100km offshore where water depth is around 1000m. The drilling rig Noble Phoenix has recently undergone refurbishment and recertification on the thrusters, riser and blow out preventer (BOP) systems, to meet Shell’s HSE criteria for deepwater drilling.

A major soft drink manufacturer has selected Siemens Water Technologies to provide a wastewater treatment solution for a new bottling plant in the Philippines. This multi-million dollar project includes the Siemens proprietary Omniflo sequencing batch reactor system for biological treatment. It was chosen for its modular design and batch processing capability.

SABIC and ExxonMobil Chemical have moved their proposed JV elastomers project on to the FEED stage. The new manufacturing site at Jubail Industrial City will be integrated with an existing petrochemical JV at KEMYA. Plans include more than 400ktpa of materials including EPDM/TPE, TPO, butyl, SBR/PBR and carbon black.

RWE Power, BASF and Linde have advanced a CO2 scrubbing solvent, which they say, can achieve a separation efficiency of 90%, high purity and much lower energy input. The development, they claim, could speed the adoption of carbon capture & storage, particularly in the coal-power generation sector. Read more

Centrica has awarded Heerema Hartlepool the engineering, procurement, construction and installation contract of the 2,750 tonnes York platform. The construction work of the 1,300 tonnes topsides and 1,450 tonnes jacket of the York platform will be started in April. Read more

BP is to acquire majority (83%) control of the Brazilian ethanol and sugar producer Companhia Nacional de Açúcar e Álcool (CNAA). The $680m deal will increase BP’s overall Brazilian production capacity to around 1.4bn litres of ethanol equivalent per year (9m barrels). BP will operate two ethanol mills, in Goiás and Minas Gerais states. A third CNAA mill is currently under development in Minas Gerais state.

Sasol is paying CA$1050m to acquire a 50% stake in Talisman Energy’s Cypress A shale gas asset in the Montney basin of British Columbia.Talisman is retaining a 50% interest and will continue to operate the 57,000-acre asset with an estimated contingent resource of 11.2 trillion cubic feet. The gas is to either be sold into the regional gas market, or to a potential integrated GTL facility in Canada. Sasol and Talisman recently announced a feasibility study of a GTL facility in western Canada, based on Sasol technology.

Honeywell has won a contract extension to provide its UniSim Design technology to all of Shell Exploration & Production’s global sites through 2015. This has been Shell E&P’s preferred process simulation technology since 2007: being used for both steady-state and dynamic models for plant design, performance monitoring, troubleshooting, operational improvement, business planning and asset management.

Coperion GmbH has landed the biggest single contract in its history – a Euro100m deal with Borouge to build the entire materials handling systems for the third expansion stage of a large scale plant for the production of polyolefin in Ruwais, UAE. Borouge is a JV between the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co and Borealis. Read more

Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies has three repeat orders for its Hydrotech Discfilter tertiary treatment filters: for Scottish Water at Campbeltown, Thames Water at Chievely and United Utilities at Hawkshead. At Campbeltown, two units will treat flows up to 50l/s, while at Chieveley and Hawkshead smalller units will treat flows of 40l/s and 20l/s respectively.