Contracts & Projects Tracker: June 2011

Achilles Group is to manage Shell’s global supplier information requirements, providing a single approach to corporate responsibility, compliance and risk management. The aim is to assist Shell in administering high quality supplier information across the supply chain. A supplier in one geographical region will now gain far greater visibility to Shell procurement departments in other regions, said Achilles.

Meyn-Ishida is to deliver and install a wall-to-wall poultry processing plant adjacent to an existing factory for Wipasz – a Polish animal feed supplier, which diversified into poultry processing in 2010 with the acquisition of a 5,000-birds-per-hour facility. During 2011-13, the alliance will replace the existing live bird arrival system and upgrade the bulk pack operation with weighing and tray packing capabilities.

DavyMarkham has secured a $5.4m contract to supply two heavy-duty mining hoists to Volcan Compañia Minera of Peru, the world’s fourth largest producer of zinc and silver. The order is for production and service hoists for Volcan’s latest Pique Andaychagua mining project in Peru’s Yuauli province. They will be designed for a production rate of 4,000 t/day from depths down to 970m. (More on Process Engineering)

RWE Innogy and the Serbian energy utility Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) formed a JV to develop hydropower plants in Belgrade, with a total installed capacity of 150 MW. The Moravske hidroelektrane doo JV is to develop five run-of-river power plants with an installed capacity of 30 MW each on the Morava river. Construction of the first hydropower plant is to start in 2014. RWE Innogy has a stake of 51 % in the venture, EPS 49 %.

Aker has won two contracts, together worth £13m, from CQG Oil and Gas Contractors and CCI Oil and Gas Contractors, for the supply of Pusnes offloading systems to two FPSOs in Brazil.The offloading systems will be installed on the two FPSOs P-58 and P-62, which are being converted and built for Petrobras.

United Utilities has awarded a Costain, Galliford Try and Atkins JV £200m worth of work to upgrade and extend Sandon Dock sewage treatment works in Liverpool. The AMP5 project work involves extending the current treatment works into the adjacent dock along with major upgrade works to the existing plant.

Costain has announced a further extension to its AMP5 contract with Severn Trent Water, worth around £45m. Working in partnership with Severn Trent and other non-infrastructure contractors, a programme of major schemes to a value of £187m will include wastewater schemes for Costain to design and build.

Technology designed to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions from fluidised catalytic cracking units in refineries is being introduced by Shell Global Solutions (US) Inc. and Praxair Inc. Designed to help meet regulatory requirements, CONOx technology provides a high-velocity, highly reactive oxygen jet with superior mixing capabilities that enables rapid reactions of carbon monoxide and NOx precursors at typical flue gas temperatures.

Victrex Polymer Solutions has teamed up with Magma Global Ltd, which has developed a manufacturing process that produces carbon-reinforced pipes, based on Victrex PEEK. (More on Process Engineering)

Start-up O-Flexx Technologies is using 3D design and engineering software from Autodesk to develop ways of powering off-grid sensors and converting waste heat into electricity. O-Flexx works with technical universities and industrial partners to make new thermoelectric generators. Its technology is said to enable the autonomous use of sensors and economic use of waste heat within logistics and industrial applications. (More on ProcessingTalk)

Jacobs Engineering has won a contract from Infineum, a formulator, manufacturer and marketer of petroleum additives, under a master services agreement (MSA) for the company’s operations in Europe, Asia and North America. The five-year MSA covers engineering services at Infineum manufacturing facilities in the US, France, Germany, UK, Italy and Singapore. Jacobs is providing services for project development at Infineum’s manufacturing locations.

Hess Corp. has selected Mustang to provide detailed design and procurement services for an expansion of its Tioga natural gas plant in the Bakken oil play in northwestern North Dakota. The project will expand the facility’s capacity from about 110 MMSFD gas to 250 MMSCFD. The cryogenic gas plant will be designed for ethane recovery, full fractionation and sales of natural gas liquids. Engineering design services are expected to be completed in Q2/12.

Goteborg Energi AB has awarded Jacobs Engineering a Euro13.7m contract for the GoBiGas-project, a 20MW biomass gasification and methanation project in Goteborg, Sweden, to come on line in 2013. The contract covers local construction management services for a demo plant to produce biomethane from biomass. The gasification technology is provided by Metso Power in cooperation with Repotec, and Haldor Topsoe is providing the methanation technology.

Sinopec and Richmond Co. of the UAE plan to cooperate in building asphalt upgrading facilities in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, by means of technology trade. The products will be sold under the brand of Sinopec and the two sides will work together to explore the market.With the investment from Richmond Co. and the technology and branding provided by Sinopec, the asphalt upgrading facilities are expected to be put into operation in October.

Alcoa has installed 33 compressors as part of plans to increase productivity and lower maintenance costs at its San Ciprián plant, which produces primary aluminium from bauxite. The raw material is transformed into alumina through the ’Bayer’ process and subsequent conversion of the alumina into liquid aluminium by an electrolytic process. (More on Process Engineering)

Shell Global Solutions International BV has recently signed three licensing agreements with the state-owned North Refineries Co. in Kirkuk, Iraq. These will provide a process licence and a basic engineering* package for a kerosene hydrotreater, a diesel hydrotreater and a vacuum gasoil hydrocracker. Each agreement includes a licence for Shell proprietary technology and the provision of engineering services.

The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has unveiled plans for a power plant combining biomass energy generation with carbon capture and storage (CCS).The plant is one of three proposed projects announced by the ETI - a public-private consortium, which is developing industrial solutions to help the UK meet its renewable energy and emissions targets. (More on Process Engineering)

GE Oil and Gas has announced that its drilling and production business has been selected to supply high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) equipment for the development of gas fields, offshore Vietnam. The equipment will be supplied to Bien Dong Petroleum Operating Co., a part of the state-run Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam). (More on ProcessingTalk)

Engineering Steel Belgium is saving Euro45k a year on the operation of three cooling pumps on one of its electrical steel furnaces since installing new motors and drives. WEG distributor Leclercq Energy supplied three WEG W22 132kW, IE2 high-efficiency motors, controlled variable speed drives to Processautomation, which supplied and commissioned the complete energy-saving package, including control panel with drives, softstarters, PLC, and process supervision via Profibus-DP. (More on ProcessingTalk)

Woodside’s Xeres-1 well has intersected about 51 metres of gross gas within the Triassic target. The well, 12 km ESE of the Pluto-1 discovery in licence WA-34-L, Carnarvon Basin, Western Australia, reached a depth of 3285m. The discovery has been confirmed by establishing a gas pressure gradient and the recovery of gas samples to surface. Woodside is the operator and 90% equity owner of WA-34-L. Woodside has a 100% interest in the Xeres-1 well and its JV partners in WA-34-L, Tokyo Gas and Kansai Electric, each have options to acquire a 5% stake in the well.

Alpeco has been selected as a preferred supplier of Consols Oils, a Cornish oil company that specifies fuel and oil delivery metering systems from the Aylesbury liquid-handling company. (More on ProcessingTalk)

Sandvik’s wire production facility in Sandviken, Sweden, has restarted production after a fire, on 14 April. which destroyed the pickling plant and damaged some wire drawing machines and the building. The restart required extensive repairs including replacing roofing and facilities supplying electricity, compressed air, cooling water and protective gases.

SABIC and Sinopec are to establish a 260ktpa polycarbonate plant in China, via their SSTPC (Sinopec SABIC Tianjin Petrochemical Co.) JV. SSTPC already produces various petrochemical products, including ethylene, polyethylene, ethylene glycol, polypropylene, butadiene, phenol and butene-1. Due to be operational by 2015, the new plant will employ SABIC’s technology using a phosgene- and dichloromethane-free process.

Atlas Copco has won two orders, together worth $50m, on the Ma’aden aluminum project in Saudi Arabia. Atlas Copco will supply 20 turbo compressors for a power generation application in a new plant outside of Jubail. The customer is a consortium of the Al-Arrab contracting company and Sepco III Electric Construction Corp. of China. (More on Process Engineering)

KBR subsidiary Roberts & Schaefer is to construct a petroleum coker material handling system for Motiva Enterprise’s Port Arthur refinery expansion project. The $9.1m deal is part of Motiva’s plans to up the Texas site’s capacity to 600k bpd in 2012. R&S will install, start-up, and test the pet coke system, and provide on-site construction management and support for commissioning/testing. R&S had already executed the engineering and procurement phase of the project.

ABB has been selected to automate a major gas storage facility being built in Cheshire, UK, for Storengy, part of a GDF Suez. The Stublach facility will store over 400m cubic metres of gas in underground salt caverns. (More on Process Engineering)

MTL Group has gained a ’multimillion-pound’ contract to supply 97 boat landing systems to a foundations manufacturer for a German offshore wind farm in the North Sea. MTL specialises in batch fabrications and structures up to 400t in weight. 25 MTL employees will work on the project at the group’s Rotherham facility. Work is due to commence in July, for final delivery in Q1/12

Oxford Catalysts Group’s microchannel reactor technology is now set to be deployed in a 50 barrels/day BTL plant planned for Brazil. The plant, a JV between Portuguese company SGC Energia and an un-named partner. is expected to begin operating early in 2012. (More on Process Engineering)

CB&I has been awarded an additional project, valued at around $50m, for storage tanks at an oil sands project near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. CB&I’s scope of work includes the engineering, procurement, fabrication and construction of 12 cone roof tanks at the oil sands project. CB&I’s contract is scheduled for completion in 2013.

BP is to sell its interests in the Wytch Farm, Wareham, Beacon and Kimmeridge fields to Perenco UK Ltd for up to $610m in cash. The price includes $55m contingent on Perenco’s future development of the Beacon field and on oil prices in 2011-13. The sale is part of BP plans to divest up to $30bn of assets by the end of 2011. BP had already announced sales agreements totalling around $25bn. (More on Process Engineering)

Sinopec Wuhan Co. has awarded Burckhardt Compression two orders to deliver a total of six Laby (labyrinth piston) compressors for its Wuhan petrochemical complex. (More on Process Engineering)

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has been awarded the Ras Tanura refinery clean fuels and aromatics project, the first major project to be awarded under the Saudi Aramco general engineering and project management services (GES+) contract. The scope of services for the Clean Fuels and Aromatics Project includes pre-FEED services. The project also includes modifications to the refinery to comply with future environmental regulations.

BP and Davy Process Technology Ltd, part of Johnson Matthey Plc, have selected Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. to help seek deployment opportunities for the BP/Davy Fischer Tropsch process: providing engineering resources to potential licensees. The BP/Davy process transforms syngas into liquid hydrocarbons – producing diesel, jet fuel and naphtha from natural gas, bio-mass or coal-derived syngas.

Enpure has won an AMP5 capital projects process framework with Bristol Water, which will include the design and construction of UV tertiary treatment plants at several water treatment works. The plants will be built at the Purton, Littleton, Cheddar and Stowey works, which must meet associated DWI deadlines over a 2.5-year period, the first being operational by December. The DWI has approved UV as a means of rendering Cryptosporidium oocysts non viable.

AMEC is to buy US engineering and environmental services company Mactec from its equity holders for $280m. Mactec, which employs 2,600 mainly in the eastern part of the US, provides similar services to AMEC’s earth & environmental unit, including environmental planning, assessment and remediation, infrastructure engineering, water resources and construction support services. Mactec has gross assets of around $283m and earnings (2010 EBIT) of $32m.

Petronas plans to build a $20bn refinery and petrochemicals complex in Southern Johor, to start up by Q4/16. The ’RAPID’ development will comprise a 300k bpd crude oil refinery, a naphtha cracker that will produce about 3,000ktpa of ethylene, propylene, C4 and C5 olefins, and a petchems and polymer complex. To support the development, PETRONAS is also looking at building an LNG receiving and re-gasification terminal.

SC Complexul Energetic Rovinari has selected Emerson to supply a system for continuous protection and prediction monitoring of critical machinery at the Rovinari power plant in Romania. The 1320MW unit is the second-largest power generating facility in the country. (More on Process Engineering)

Kingfisher Industrial has won an order from a bulk hacndling systems manufacturer for a sewage treatment works project in Qatar. The company has provided a 20-year design life on silo cones lined with its K-Bas material at the facility, situated to the north west of Al Gharrafa. The silo cones have to cope with wind speeds up to 42m/s, relative humidity’s up 100% and ambient building temperatures of 40 deg C; and the considerable amount of salt contained in the atmosphere.

Foster Wheeler has been awarded a contract by Zhejiang Jiahua Industrial Park Investment & Development Co. for the design and supply of three coal-fired circulating fluidised-bed (CFB) steam generators to meet increasing steam demand at China Chemical and New Material Park in China’s Jiaxing city. Commercial startup is due in Q4/12. FW will design and supply three 100MWe CFB steam generators plus auxiliary equipment and provide site advisory services.

Anglian Water has recently signed a three-year maintenance and repair contract with Bollfilter UK, covering all of its Boll nitrate removal plant (NRP) protection systems. The deal covers regular annual servicing and repairs at a negotiated fixed rate – extending the service warranty over the contract period. Anglian Water employs Bollfilter automatic filters at 12 water treatment sites with NRPs – high value capital equipment using pre-filtration to prevent contamination.

Star Petroleum Refining Co. Ltd has awarded Foster Wheeler a FEED contract for a ’residue fluidised catalytic cracking unit revamp turnaround and inspection’ project at its refinery at Map Ta Phut in Thailand. The revamp is to improve on-stream reliability together with environmental and performance improvements. The FEED is due by Q1/12.

SABIC and ExxonMobil Corp.’s 50/50 JV partner, Al-Jubail Petrochemical Co. (KEMYA), signed a long-term technology licensing agreement with Continental Carbon Co. for its production technology related to the construction and operation of a new greenfield carbon black plant at KEMYA’s petchem complex at Al-Jubail, Saudi Arabia. KEMYA and Continental Carbon have also signed a long-term product off-take agreement in addition to the technology license.

German group MVV Energie AG has awarded a Euro30m contract to Imtech NV to provide technology for an energy-from-waste power plant to be constructed in Plymouth, in south-west England. The CHP facility will generate 23 MW of heat and 22.5MW electricity. (More on Process Engineering)

Shell Eastern Trading (Pte) Ltd and CPC Corp. of Taiwan have signed a heads of agreement for the supply of LNG from Shell’s global LNG portfolio. Shell will supply 2,000ktpa of LNG for 20 years starting in 2016. The agreement will see Shell become one the main suppliers of LNG to Taiwan.

Alcoa and the China Development Bank (CDB) are to collaborate on ’an array’ of aluminum and related projects both in China and abroad. An agreement focuses on Alcoa partnering with Chinese companies on global expansion projects and developing China’s domestic aluminum industry.

Total has signed a deal with ExxonMobil to farm into shale gas exploration concessions in Poland. (More on Process Engineering)

HIMA is to provide its safety instrumented systems (SIS) and functional safety services to BP’s five North American refineries. The five-year deal centres on HIMA’s TÜV-certified HIMax safety platform, SILworX configuration, programming and diagnostic software and associated services. This, said HIMA, will enhance BP’s safety integrity and its flexibility to maintain/modify systems, and help it standardise safety design, implementation and compliance documentation.

RWE Innogy has commissioned the “world’s largest plant” for the production of pellets from green wood in the US state of Georgia. The wood pellets produced in the 750ktpa plant will be shipped from Georgia to Europe as of this summer for use in existing RWE’s hard coal-fired power plants for the generation of electricity and heat – saving around 1,000ktpa of CO2.

DuPont has unveiled a titanium dioxide expansion plan which will add about 350ktpa of global capacity. A new line at its Altamira, Mexico site, at an investment of over $500m, will provide 200ktpa by year-end 2014, with the remainder coming from upgrades at its five TiO2 manufacturing sites over the next three years.

M&G is to build a 1,000ktpa PET polymer plant at a yet-to-be-decided location – in Texas, Mississippi or Louisiana. Integrated with a new 1,200ktpa PTA plant at the same site, the single-line PET plant will employ the same technology (including M&G’s EasyUp SSP technology) as M&G’s 650ktpa, single-reactor Suape, Brazil, PET plant. Two technologies are at the final evaluation stage for the PTA plant.

The UK government has submitted 12 UK-based projects to the European Investment Bank for consideration in the next round of the EU’s New Entrant Reserve scheme. Seven applications are for CCS projects and five for renewable energy projects. Two CCS applications were withdrawn voluntarily by the project sponsors. (More on Process Engineering)

Lancashire, UK-based cheese producer Singleton’s Dairy has purchased an Hitachi PXR-H450 coder and is looking at placing a second order following an expansion of the dairy. Singleton’s, which supplies major supermarket brands, is using the Hitachi PXR-H450 to date code sliced packs of cheese at up to 60 packs per minute. The unit was originally trialled as a hire out from equipment suppplier Euromark Ltd.

Thai Oil Public Co. Ltd has awarded Foster Wheeler a contract for the basic design engineering package and engineering, procurement and construction management services at its refinery at Sriracha in Thailand. The refinery aims to process higher sulfur crudes, upgrade fuel oil and meet new SOx emissions regs by Q1/13. Residue production will be reduced via deep cut vacuum technology. New sour gas handling facilities will be installed, including a sulfur recovery unit and a tail gas treatment unit, and hydrogen capacity will be expanded with a new pressure swing adsorption unit. FW’s scope also includes revamp work.

Fluor SKM, a JV between Fluor Australia Pty Ltd. and Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM), is to execute BHP Billiton’s iron ore expansion programme in Western Australia. The focus will be primarily the expansion of the Jimblebar Mine. Fluor has booked around $3bn for the Jimblebar Project and additional work in Q1/11.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has signed a 12-month master services agreement from Nestle Servicios Industriales to provide professional services for Nestle’s production facilities in Mexico. Jacobs is providing engineering, procurement support, construction supervision and/or management, as well as project management services for Nestle projects in its dairy, coffee and food processing facilities located in Mexico. Jacobs is also currently providing engineering services in Nestle’s dairy and coffee locations. Nestle’s Cereal Operations will be covered in a separate master services agreement.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has been awarded an engineering and procurement supply contract by China Sun Paper for an integrated chlorine dioxide plant in Laos. Jacobs is providing basic design engineering of the plant, limited detailed engineering, procurement of key equipment (including supply of its proprietary electrolysers) and materials, in addition to technical services for commissioning. The plant is a part of a scheme to be built and developed by China Sun Paper that includes a 300ktpa bleached hardwood kraft pulp mill and 100,000 hectares of eucalyptus and acacia plantations in Savanakhet, Laos.

RWE AG has officially opened its new Staythorpe Power Station in Nottinghamshire. Costing £650m, the 1,650MW combined cycle gas turbine power plant took around three years and 6,000 people to construct. It is claimed to be one of the largest and most efficient plants of its kind in Europe and the first gas-fired power station to be built by RWE npower for many years. Alstom, the main contractor on the construction project, has a long-term service agreement at the site.

Huntsman Corp. and Wilmar International Ltd have agreed a deal for Wilmar to build a natural alcohol plant at Huntsman’s chemical site in Rozenburg, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and to supply natural alcohols to Huntsman. The facility is to come on stream by 2013. The plant will be owned and operated by Wilmar, an Asia-based agri-commodities company and one of the world’s largest oleochemicals businesses.

Yokogawa Electric Corp. has won an order from Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co. Ltd to supply the control systems for a supercritical pressure coal-fired power plant that is being built in Raipur, central India, for Indian power company GMR Chhattisgarh Energy Pvt Ltd. Read more

Uniqsis Ltd and Cambridge Reactor Design Ltd, both based near Cambridge, UK, are collaborating to commercialise a cooling system for continuous flow reactors used in flow chemistry. Known as the FlowSyn Polar Bearä, the system enables controlled mixing and cooling of reagents down to -88°C. Read more

Saudi Aramco has selected SNC-Lavalin, together with its Saudi Arabian 50/50 JV partner the Zuhair Fayez Partnership, to perform general engineering and project management services (GES+) under a five-year contract. The JV will perform FEED, detailed engineering and project management services for the execution of Aramco projects, including oil and gas production and processing facilities, infrastructure projects, refining and petrochemical facilities.

GAME Engineering Ltd has completed an upgrade of Silvery Tweed’s grain intake, storage and handling operation in Berwick, UK. A new handling system has eliminated safety/hygiene issues caused by by-product from cleaning and pearling of grains, cut vehicle loading times by a third to about 1hr, and upped throughput from 20 to 60t/hr. It has also expanded raw materials storage capacity from 25t to 200t, and added a weighbridge for accurate weighing of vehicles.

Chevron Corp. is to acquire oil and gas assets, primarily 228,000 net leasehold acres, in the Marcellus Shale from Chief Oil & Gas LLC and Tug Hill Inc. The acreage, which is mainly located in southern Pennsylvania, will give Chevron an estimated 5 trillion cubic feet of extra natural gas resource in its Marcellus Shale operations. Over the last year, Chevron has acquired nearly 5m net acres of shale gas assets in the US, Canada, Poland and Romania.

BP Azerbaijan has awarded AMEC a $600m brownfield contract, covering onshore and offshore assets in the region for five years with two possible four-year extension.The contract is for the provision of project management, engineering, construction management and commissioning for engineering modifications to BP’s existing oil and gas facilities in Azerbaijan. AMEC will carry out the work in Baku with local company Azfen. Read more

Tata Steel has recently launched a £53m investment at its Port Talbot works with a target of reducing the site’s external power requirements by about 15%. The company is also investing £8m to expand operations at its Clydebridge plant in Cambuslang, Glasgow.. Read more

Rosneft has acquired PdVSA of Venezuela’s 50% stake German refining Ruhr Oel GmbH (ROG) JV with BP, which includes: Gelsenkirchen Refinery (100% ROG); PCK Schwedt Refinery (37.5% ROG share); Bayernoil Refinery (25% ROG share); and MiRO Refinery (24% ROG share). ROG also owns DHC Solvent Chemie and shares in pipeline companies transporting crude oil to these refineries. The JV owns over 19% of German refining capacity and 5% of the ethylene capacity in NW Europe.

CB&I Lummus UK Ltd, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. and the Shaw Group have signed agreements to work individually with BP and Davy Process Technology to seek deployment opportunities for the BP/Davy Fischer-Tropsch process. The BP/Davy process can produce diesel, jet fuel and naphtha from natural gas, bio-mass or coal derived syngas, and has been demonstrated in Nikiski, Alaska, with full scale fixed-bed reaction tubes at the 300 bpd complex.

Davy Process Technology Ltd and Dow Chemical Co.’s oxygenated solvents business have recently licensed a new 140ktpa 2-ethylhexanol plant utilizing LP OxoSM Selector 10 Technology in China’s Shandong Province. The low-pressure hydroformylation process technology is most commonly used with propylene and synthesis gas – a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide – to produce normal- and isobutyraldehydes, which are then converted into 2-ethylhexanol and n- and iso-butanol.

Shell has started production from its 100k bpd Scotford Upgrader expansion project in Canada, taking upgrading capacity at Scotford to 255k bpd of heavy oil from the Athabasca oil sands. The upgrader processes oil sands bitumen from the Muskeg River Mine and Jackpine Mine. It will next improve operating efficiencies and debottleneck the unit, while work also continues on the proposed Quest project to capture and store underground some 1,000ktpa of CO2. Shell Canada Energy is 60% owner and operator of the project, along with Chevron Canada Ltd (20%) and Marathon Oil Corp. (20%).

Perstorp is investing in extended capacity for neopentyl glycol by establishing a 40ktpa production at its site in Zibo, China, to start up during H2/12.