Contracts & Projects November 2011

Amarinth has won an order for $850,000 for eight pumps to be used in the harsh and demanding conditions off Sakhalin Island, Russia. The six Amarinth API 610 VS4 vertical pumps manufactured in duplex steel and the two electro-submersible pumps have been fully winterised to withstand the intense cold. The pumps will be used in the processing of produced water and other utilities, including wastewater.

Fluor Corp. has been awarded a multi-year special projects supplement to an existing contract to provide construction and other support services for Luminant’s environmental retrofit program. Luminant is a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings Corp. Fluor will supply management, supervision and craft personnel to support construction services and environmental retrofits to Luminant’s current coal-fired power plant units. Fluor recently completed Oak Grove Units 1 & 2 clean coal project and the balance-of-plant construction for Luminant’s Sandow 5 Selective Catalytic Reduction project.

The UK government has approved plans to establish two new power stations in Yorkshire Ferrybridge - a 108MW (biomass and energy-from-waste) plant in Wakefield, representing an investment of £250m by SSE Generation, and employing 350 in construction; and Thorpe Marsh - a 1,500MW combined cycle gas turbine plant in Doncaster, representing an investment of £984m by Acorn Power Developments. It expected that up to 800 jobs will be created during construction. (More on Process Engineering)

Shell Chemicals is working on “concrete investment proposals” to improve the integration between refinery and cracker at Moerdijk, The Netherlands, and its cracker in Wesseling, Germany, to get more feedstock advantage into the system. The company is also looking at further derivatives investments in Europe, Ben van Beurden, Shell executive vice president chemicals, added Ben van Beurden, Shell executive vice president chemicals.

Aerators made by Landia have solved a serious odour problem for Hedensted Spildevand’s WWTW at Juelsminde in southern Denmark, where effluent from local food processors was causing unpleasant smells. Compressors and filters were looked at for the application, but Landia’s AirJet aerators, which draw liquid into the pump’s knife system and chop any solids into pieces, were considered to be far more efficient and cost-effective. Part of a £1M upgrade at Juelsminde, which is set to become one of three larger, more efficient Hedensted Spildevand treatment plants (superseding six smaller separate WWTWs), the odour problem was exacerbated by the length of time the effluent was spending in the pipes that stretch over several kilometres.

A partnership between AUMA and Kirloskar (KBL) has amalgamated actuator and valve technology to support an Indian thermal power plant in Salaya, Gujarat. The automation solution, supplied to Essar Power Gujarat Ltd, has been produced to control the common header of circulating water pumps for Salaya 1. Demonstrating an ability to provide tailored systems, the bespoke design for the 2x600MW plant combines AUMA’s electric multi-turn actuator, integral actuator controls and worm gearbox with a 3.6m butterfly valve from KBL. AUMA’s modular actuator design supports the need for flexible operation at the thermal power plant and a requirement for durability was addressed with KBL’s ebonite-lined butterfly valve.

Rotary lobe pumps made by Börger have been introduced at Ystradgynlais WWTW in Powys to handle a demanding de-sludging application for Dwr Cymru Welsh Water. The Maintenance-In-Place 7.5kW Börger pumps have replaced failing units at Ystradgynlais, which is close to important salmon fishing stretches along the River Tawe on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park. Self-priming, valve-less and designed with speed-proportional flow, Börger’s pumps have also proved their reliability at a separate Dwr Cymru Welsh Water STW. For the past three years, Börger’s CL390 7.5kw pumps have been utilized to feed two 65 m3/h sludge screens.

Foster Wheeler has received an engineering, procurement and construction management services contract from Sasol New Energy Holdings (Proprietary) Ltd for the outside battery limit portion of a new gas-fired power generation plant at Sasolburg, South Africa. The project is expected to raise Sasol’s electricity self-sufficiency to 840MWe or 60% of its overall power draw, in view of South Africa’s tightening electricity supply/demand balance. Due for completion during Q3/12, FW’s scope includes the earthworks for the entire outside battery limit site; an access road; utility connections; 15/88kV step-up transformers and an 88kV substation with associated electrical infrastructure and network system.

Analytical Technology has completed the first phase of a framework agreement with Yorkshire Water: installing 75 chlorine monitors installed at 12 YW sites in the North and Dales areas. This includes a mixture of buffered, bufferless and pH corrected units, which are deployed depending on water quality and expected pH range. Funding for the second phase has recently been approved, in which a region wide asset replacement of chlorine monitors will be completed. This will include the installation of 377 chlorine monitors into an additional 31 water treatment plants and 20 secondary chlorination sites.

Lummus Technology has been awarded a contract by China Coal Shaanxi Yulin Energy & Chemical Co. Ltd for the license and engineering design of two light olefins recovery units. The plants will be located in Yulin, Shaanxi Province, China. The start-up of the first unit is expected in 2013.The recovery units, which use new technology to recover olefins produced from methanol feed, are each expected to yield 300ktpa of polymer-grade ethylene, and 300ktpa of polymer-grade propylene. The olefins conversion technology (OCT) from Lummus technology was also selected to upgrade the by-product produced by the light olefins recovery units into an additional 165ktpa of polymer-grade propylene.

Wood Group GTS has completed a major inspection contract with Origin Energy for a GE Frame 6B gas turbine at the 74MW Roma Power Station in Queensland, Australia. Under the agreement, worth around $4m, Wood Group GTS provided manpower, sourcing and management of various sub-contract activities, as well as supplying outage consumables, APM parts and compressor blades for the gas turbine. Origin Energy is a major Australasian integrated energy company involved in gas and oil exploration and production, energy retailing and power generation.

GE Energy has signed a memorandum of understanding with Foster Wheeler to explore the pursuit of selected mining and metals projects in South America. The partners aim to offer innovative solutions to the mining sector, combining equipment and technology from GE Energy, together with the technical expertise in mining and metals and the project execution capability of Foster Wheeler Chile SA. This combined offering would include mineral processing, power generation and water desalination facilities, providing solutions to address processing issues, and to improve productivity, water and waste management and power utilisation.

Yokogawa Electric Corp. has signed a supply agreement with Belden, whose products include the Hirschmann brand of industrial network switches — used to connect the different components of a control network. Yokogawa is to provide a long-term and stable supply of Hirschmann’s industrial Ethernet switches to its customers for use with the Yokogawa Vnet/IP control network. Yokogawa will sell these network switch products to its customers and provide maintenance services thatfacilitate the configuration of control networks.

Eni has announced a “giant natural gas discovery” offshore Mozambique. The discovery well encountered a total of 212 meters of continuous gas pay in high-quality Oligocene sands. The discovery well is located in water depths of 1585 meters about 40 km off Cabo Delgado coast, in the northern offshore of Mozambique. The well will be drilled to reach an expected total depth of around 5000 metres. Eni reckons that the discovery can lead to at least 22.5 tcf of gas in place in the area.

ConocoPhillips has awarded the Clough AMEC JV a two-year contract extension by to provide operations and maintenance services to the Bayu Undan facilities located in the Timor Sea. The contract extension has an estimated value of AU$100m. The JV has provided operations and maintenance services to the Bayu-Undan facilities since July 2004.
Bayu-Undan consists of a floating storage and offloading facility and three fixed platforms, a remote wellhead platform, and a compression, utilities and quarters platform, which is bridge-linked to a drilling, production and processing platform.

Fluor Corp. has been awarded a FEED contract by Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Co. (ADMA-OPCO) for new offshore facilities located at the Nasr Field, about 30km northeast of Umm Shaif Super Complex in Abu Dhabi. The Nasr Full Field Development project includes seven wellhead towers, super complex facilities including gas processing and oil separation
production facilities, utilities platform, living quarters, infield subsea pipelines and an export pipeline to Das Island.

Valve operation at an Australian water filtration plant (WFP) at Nepean, 75km south of Sydney, will be supported by SIPOS Aktorik’s variable speed, electric actuators. Actuation communication capability for SIPOS’ 5 Flash actuators was demonstrated to secure the contract for 60 units by local distributor, Barron GJM Pty Ltd. Located near two dams, the Nepean WFP, owned by Sydney Water, incorporates a cluster of five filtration plants. Raw water is drawn from the Nepean dam and treated water is supplied to local regions.

French chemicals maker Arkema has awarded Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. a contract to provide engineering procurement and construction management services for two projects, an acrylic acid expansion and a methyl acrylate project, at the company’s Clear Lake, Texas operations.

Honeywell and Bayer Technology Services (BTS) are to jointly deliver dynamic process simulation and other training systems for the chemical and pharma industries. BTS has developed multiple simulation studies and training systems to meet chemical industry needs for safe, reliable and efficient design and operations. Honeywell Process Solutions’ (HPS) offers software and consulting services in the area of training simulation. The partnership, said HPS, will support BTS’ project execution and will give both parties flexibility in staffing.

AMEC, has been appointed by paper producer Sappi to undertake the engineering, procurement, construction management of its GoCell project in South Africa. Completion is scheduled for 2013. The GoCell Project is located at Sappi’s Ngodwana mill, near Nelspruit in Mpumalanga. The project will reconfigure one of the mill’s existing production lines to produce chemical cellulose — a feedstock for the viscose staple fibre industry, which manufactures textile and non-woven fibres.

Severn Glocon is to supply both general and severe service control valves to the Wasit gas processing facility, which will be the Saudi kingdom’s largest such facility. The valves’ production will be split between Severn Glocon’s bespoke facility in Gloucester, UK and through the Jubail facilities of Binzagr, Severn’s local business partner. The estimated $6- 8bn Saudi Aramco Wasit Gas Program will process 2,500m standard cubic feet of non-associated Khuff Gas from Arabiyah-Hasbah offshore field, with production due to begin in 2014.

RWE Dea has selected Honeywell to design and install the integrated control and safety systems at two new North Sea platforms, Clipper South and Breagh A. Production is expected to start in both locations in 2012. (More on Process Engineering)

AMEC has been appointed by BP and its partners, Shell, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, to deliver the engineering and project management services (EPMS) for the main platform design for Clair Ridge, the second phase of the giant Clair oil field, West of Shetland. The work, which is already underway, is valued at £150m and follows the completion of the conceptual engineering studies and the define phase of the Clair Ridge project. All are part of BP’s global agreement with AMEC, which deliver detailed EPMS for the construction and installation phase of two new bridge linked platforms.

Aker Solutions has agreed to pay damages to Petrobras for continuing delays on all major subsea projects with the group. The additional costs and potential future liquidated damages to Petrobras are expected to be in the range of $70-88m. Reviews are being carried out to verify the cost estimates and to ensure that all of the risks and opportunities for improvement have been fully quantified, said the Norwegian group. (More on Process Engineering)

Statoil has exercised an option of a three-year extension of the minor modifications frame agreement contract with Aker Solutions at the Mongstad refinery, located on Norway’s west coast. Aker Solutions estimates the contract value to be about NOK360m.The original frame agreement at the Mongstad refinery commenced in January 2006 and lasts until the end of 2011. Scope of work includes studies and execution of modifications to increase operational stability, capacity and longevity. A total of 100 people at Aker Solutions’ office in Bergen will work on the Mongstad contract.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has gained new contracts from seven clients in the Alberta oil sands to support steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) and bitumen upgrading expansion projects. Officials estimate the combined total construction value of the awarded projects at more than $1.4bn. Project scopes include EPC, FEED, fabrication and construction management on a variety of mid- and large-cap projects. The construction values on each project range in value from $15m to more than $650m.

National Grid has appointed Wood Group Kenny to study development options to transport and inject carbon dioxide into a prospective offshore saline aquifer storage location in the UK sector of the Southern North Sea. Wood Group Kenny will work together with its sister company Wood Group Mustang as a combined project team. Its scope involves concept design, scheduling and cost estimating for offshore pipeline and subsea facilities, which include the trunkline from a landfall site to the offshore injection facilities, as well as subsea structures, cables and umbilicals, and the trunk line shore approach and crossing. It will also perform flow assurance modelling from the landfall to the aquifer sand face. Wood Group Mustang will perform concept design of the offshore surface facilities including the jacket and topsides infrastructure.

Ansaldo Nucleare, part of Italian group Finmeccanica, has signed a partnership agreement with Warrington-based Nuvia and Birkenhead-based Cammell Laird to design and build heavy modules and components for the UK’s civil nuclear programme. Ansaldo Nucleare is the designer of the major modules for the Westinghouse AP1000 plant and currently involved in the design and construction of the Containment Vessel at Sanmen nuclear power plant in China. The partners propose to build super modules for AP1000 and EPR nuclear power plants, using an off-site ’weather protected’ construction hall and sea access load-out facilities at Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead capable of handling modules up to 5000 tonne.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has been awarded an extension to its current marine environmental services contract from Horizon Nuclear Power Ltd in support of its new build nuclear power station development at Wylfa, Anglesey in the UK. Jacobs’ scope of works includes a baseline marine ecology survey covering fisheries, benthos, marine birds, plankton and water quality; and environmental impact assessments for the new power station and its associated infrastructure. Horizon Nuclear is a UK energy company developing a new generation of nuclear power stations. The JV between E.ON UK and RWE npower plans to deliver around 6,000MW of new nuclear power station capacity in the UK by 2025, involving more than $24bn of investment.

The first production facilities in a $1.4bn expansion of BASF-YPC Co. Ltd have started operations, including a steam cracker expansion - from 600ktpa to 740ktpa of ethylene - butadiene extraction plant and non-ionic surfactants plant. The overall project, which broke ground in Q3/09, includes expansions at three existing plants, and ten new plants. Most of the remaining plants are due on-stream Q4/11. The butadiene plant, which extracts butadiene from the C4 cracker stream, is core to the integrated C4 complex. The surfactants plant is part of an integrated ethylene oxide derivatives value chain which will also include a new amines complex.

China National Coal Group Corp. has recently selected Dow’s UNIPOL polypropylene process technology for its new 300ktpa and 450ktpa units producing homopolymers, random copolymers and impact copolymers. ChinaCoal will use the technology for a 300ktpa unit that will be designed in 2011 and constructed in 2012 with start-up due in 2013. The second plant will begin design in 2011 and construction in 2013 with an expected startup in 2015. Both facilities will use Dow catalysts and donors and will be located in Yulin, Shaanxi province.

Pipe Center has completed one of the largest valve contracts it has undertaken with the supply of a large goggle valve to Tata’s steelworks in Scunthorpe. The valve, 8ft long, weighing 6 tonnes and with a bore of 42in, is installed on a gasholder used to store coke oven gas at the steelworks. The gas is used as fuel in the various iron and steelmaking processes at the plant. Tata placed a second order with Pipe Center for a similar valve, this time manually operated via chain and gears, for use in a different part of the plant.

Process Engineering Int. (PEI), part of Process Engineering Associates, is to perform a cooling system study for Saudi Aramco.  The contract was issued by Aramco Services Co. (ASC) in Houston. PEI, which will be working on the study with both ASC and Saudi Aramco personnel, will be executing the project from its base in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The project is expected to result in a preliminary process design for an improved cooling system.

After a series of meetings during the past few weeks, RWE and Gazprom have agreed to continue talks on a possible joint venture. Gazprom chairman Alexey Miller and Jürgen Großmann, CEO of RWE AG met in The Hague, Netherlands, at the beginning of this week. Their negotiations included possible co-operation regarding existing and/or new-build gas and hard coal-fired power plants in Germany, the UK and the Benelux countries are to continue until the end of 2011.

Total and Novatek are to jointly develop the Yamal LNG project, becoming the main international partner on this gas liquefaction project with a 20% share. Novatek intends to keep at least a 51% interest in the project. The Yamal LNG project will develop the South Tambey field located in the arctic area of the Yamal peninsula. The resources of this condensate and gas field will allow production of more than 15 million tons of LNG per year. With this project, Total will have access to proved and probable (2P) reserves of about 800m barrels of oil equivalent (boe) within the licence duration and to a plateau production of about 90,000 boe per day..

Fluor Corp. has been awarded a contract by North West Redwater Partnership to provide FEED services for a new refinery project in Alberta, Canada. Fluor will be responsible for two sections of the refinery that will upgrade bitumen, separating components and removing impurities, and will also re-evaluate the FEED deliverables based on a revised crude slate.
The refinery, north of Edmonton, will use oil sands bitumen to produce diesel, diluent, naphtha and other related products. The refinery will incorporate gasification and carbon capture and storage.

GE is developing a technology that, it claims, will drive greater productivity, product consistency and improved production rates for ethylene manufacturers worldwide. The sense-diagnose-remediate system, which tracks the build-up of fouling deposits on charge gas compressors in ethylene manufacturing lines, will be installed for demonstration at a PKN Orlen ethylene plant facility until the end of 2012. (More on Process Engineering)

Yorkshire-based engineering firm Hiley Engineering Ltd has secured a $0.5m+ contract to design and supply a large-scale bespoke conveyor system to Kraft Foods in Saudi Arabia. The system has been manufactured and assembled for the factory acceptance testing, which was recently completed. It will now be shipped to Saudi Arabia where, on arrival, it will be installed and commissioned under the supervision of Hiley Engineering

ICE, the major electrical utility company of Costa Rica, has awarded a three-year contract to an international consortium, between asset management consultancy TWPL (The Woodhouse Partnership Ltd) and condition monitoring company SOIMSA. TWPL and Costa Rica-based SOIMSA are to develop and implement an approach to risk, maintenance and asset management for ICE, which owns 29 electric power stations across Costa Rica. (More on Process Engineering)

Foster Wheeler AG has won a contract from Apache Khalda Corp. for the provision of project management consultancy services to oversee the FEED for the Qasr Compression Project in Egypt. The project will provide additional compression to the existing facilities at the Qasr gas condensate field, in the Western Desert, about 525km west of Cairo. Foster Wheeler will provide expertise and personnel to assist Apache Khalda in the management and administration of the FEED phase of the project. The FEED is due by the end of 2011.

Petroleum Development Oman LLC has selected Burckhardt Compression to deliver a process gas compressor for a new MGI (miscible gas injection) facility for the Al-Noor production station in Oman. Delivery is due in Q3/12. The contractor responsible for the project is Worley Parsons Oman Engineering LLC. The Al-Noor oil is miscible with hydrocarbon gas, so MGI technology was adopted. The horizontal, balanced opposed two-stage reciprocating compressor lifts dehydrated gas from the MGI de-hydration unit from 79bar to 510bar and delivers it to the injection gas trunk line for distribution to two injection wells.

Akzo Nobel has installed a purpose-built infra-red oven from Heraeus Noblelight in its research, development and innovation (RD &I) laboratory at Felling, Tyne and Wear, UK. The oven forms part of a powder coating line which has been set up in the laboratory, to carry out R&D into coating finishing operations and to help customers optimise their own coating processes.This unit is part of a Euro9m Akzo Nobel investment including a new fire protection lab for a planned £100m manufacturing facility in the north-east of England.

Endress+Hauser is to supply Shell with process measurement instruments, engineering and associated services under a recently signed, five-year enterprise framework agreement (EFA), with an option to extend for five years. Under the global deal, E+H becomes Shell’s primary supplier of instruments and technologies for flow, level, pressure and temperature measurements and for liquid analysis, and provide project management, engineering, maintenance, repairs and site services in Shell facilities. The companies have previously co-operated in some major projects, including the Pearl GTL project in Qatar.

Metso has signed a frame agreement with Neste Oil for automation and safety system replacement deliveries as well as related services from 2012 - 2016. Neste Oil has placed its first orders under the agreement for new automation and safety systems for its Porvoo and Naantali refineries to replace existing systems. The deliveries will take place next year. (More on Process Engineering)

AMEC has been awarded a FEED contract for GDF SUEZ E&P UK Ltd’s Cygnus gas field development, one of the most significant undeveloped gas fields in the North Sea. The contract includes work on the ’option to proceed’ into the detailed design and procurement  phase, and is valued at an estimated £50 million. The FEED, which starts immediately, is due for completion in 2012. The contract will create about 150 new jobs at peak.

Aker Solutions has secured a two-year contract, with two optional one-year extensions, for maintenance, modifications and operations work with an undisclosed customer in the UK sector of the North Sea. The deal will guarantee over 180 jobs annually in Aberdeen, said Aker Solutions, which estimates the contract value to be about £13m per year.

Alfa Laval has won an order to supply newly developed equipment for cleaning of industrial wastewater in Canada. The order value is around SEK60 million and delivery is scheduled for 2012. The order from CCS Corp., one of the largest oil and gas environmental service companies in North America, consists of specially developed Alfa Laval decanters to be used for large wastewater reclamation operations.

Healthcare products company B. Braun Medical AG has installed Werum’s PAS-X system at its production facility in Sempach, Switzerland. In Sempach, PAS-X will be used to optimise the manufacturing of liquids, and will also operate in explosion-proof areas. Werum’s PAS-X MES system will replace a legacy weighing and dispensing system and will provide additional functions for recipe management and execution, as well as for generating electronic manufacturing reports.

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