Contracts & Projects: March 2012
16 Apr 2012
AMEC has been awarded a project management consultancy services contract by Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Co. (ADMA OPCO) for the ‘execute phase’ of the Nasr Phase-1 and Umm Lulu Phase-1 field development projects offshore Abu Dhabi. The ‘multi-million dollar’, 30-month contract covers the EPC phase of these offshore developments.
Foster Wheeler has been awarded a contract by CJSC Antipinsky Refinery for the engineering and material supply of a new fired heater and air preheating system for the Antipinsky Refinery, Tyumen, Russia. The fired heater will be part of a new crude distillation unit. FW’s work is to be completed by the end of 2012. The deal follows an award by CJSC in 2011 for the technology license and basic design package for FW’s selective yield delayed coking technology, and the basic design package for a vacuum distillation unit.
Sellafield Ltd has awarded AXIOM - a JV between Jacobs, AMEC, Assystem and Mott MacDonald - one of two contracts for a design services alliance for its operation in West Cumbria, UK. AXIOM’s contract involves providing FEED support for all new facilities as well as refurbishment and upgrading of existing facilities and systems to the production operations and infrastructure directorates at Sellafield.
Metso is to supply a new evaporation plant and an upgrade of an existing recovery boiler for Billerud Skärblacka AB’s Skärblacka mill outside Norrköping, Sweden. The aim is to improve the environmental performance and energy efficiency of the mill as well as to enable future expansion.
Solvay has awarded Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. a $9m contract for a speciality polymers production plant to be built at its industrial site in Changshu, China. Jacobs is the EPCM services contract from its Shanghai operations in China. Solvay is investing $160m in the plant, which will produce its PVDF and FKM fluoropolymers, as well as its VF2 monomer. The plant is due to become operational in Q1/14.
Fluor Corp. has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction management contract by Joule to design and build a renewable fuel production facility in New Mexico. The facility is intended to test and scale up a process for the commercial production of liquid fuels via Joule’s technology, which uses sunlight to convert industrial waste carbon dioxide into liquid hydrocarbons, ethanol or chemical products.
Premier Oil has awarded Wood Group PSN a £250m contract to deliver integrated operations and maintenance support services to the Balmoral FPV in the North Sea. PSN is to provide managed onshore and offshore operations and maintenance services for the semi-submersible production vessel, 122 miles NE of Aberdeen, servicing the Balmoral, Stirling, Beauly, Brenda, Nicol and Burghley fields. The ‘life-of-field’ award, estimated to 2020, and will employ over 70 offshore and 15 onshore staff.
Scottish Water has completed a £23m project to provide Campbeltown with a state-of-the-art wastewater system. The scheme - one of the biggest of its kind ever carried out in Argyll & Bute - involved upgrading key parts of the water infrastructure in the town. (More on Process Engineering)
GEA Process Engineering has received a ‘huge order’ for the delivery of a production facility for milk powder to Tasmania, Australia. The order has an overall value of about Euro33 million and the plant is due to start up within the next seven months. (More on Process Engineering)
Wood Group PSN has secured a contract extension from Shell in the UK to deliver midstream engineering and construction services to the St Fergus and Mossmoran gas plants. The £75m, two-year contract includes an option for a further two-year extension. (More on Process Engineering)
National Grid, Advanced Plasma Power (APP) and Progressive Energy have launched a project to demonstrate the feasability of using of waste to produce bio-substitute natural gas (Bio-SNG). The project will be based at APP’s ‘Gasplasma’ facility in Swindon, UK. The partners will jointly design, install and test a demo plant, which will take the waste-derived synthesis gas from APP ‘Gasplasma’ process, and convert it to meet the specification for injecting it into the gas network.
Switzerland will phase out its nuclear energy whilst reducing its carbon footprint, notes a news item on the British Valve & Actuator Association website. There are, it said, major opportunities for companies that can address this 40% gap in its power supply. More information, including a range of events is available from UKTI.
Metso is to deliver automation technology to two major infrastructure projects currently under construction in South America: Belo, the world’s third largest hydroelectric plant in Brazil; and the TUY-IV project in Venezuela is a dam project aiming to supply water to Caracas. Both orders have been placed together with orders for Metso crushing and screening plants. (More on Process Engineering).
GEN II was recently named as the winning bidder for a multi-million pound, long-term training contract by Sellafield Ltd. The contract is to provide apprentice training for about 80 young people a year, further and higher education courses, such as foundation degrees in a number of nuclear disciplines and short courses ranging from safety to technical subjects.The announcement of the contract, which is currently anticipated to be worth around £25m over a maximum period of eight years, was made in the Skills Academy’s Northwest flagship centre, ENERGUS, where most of the Sellafield apprentices and HE learners are to be trained.
Foster Wheeler has been awarded a conceptual and basic design contract by SAJA Pharmaceuticals for the expansion of a manufacturing facility in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The contract is to be completed during May 2012. SAJA is a JV between TAMER Industries and two Japanese pharma companies, Daiichi-Sankyo Co. Ltd. and Astellas Pharma Inc.
Freeport LNG Expansion has awarded a JV between Zachry Industrial and CB&I a FEED contract for the Freeport Liquefaction Project near Freeport, Texas. The JV is to engineer and design three 4,400ktpa LNG liquefaction trains, with pretreatment facilities, to be sited near the existing regasification terminal: developing proposals for a one-train and a two-train initial development so that Freeport LNG can choose the optimum size of the initial phase of the project.
Qatar Petroleum (QP) and Qatar Petrochemical Co. (QAPCO) are to develop a new petrochemical complex in Ras Laffan Industrial City. The project includes a world-scale steam cracker, with the feedstock coming from natural gas plants in Ras Laffan. Due for completion in 2018, it will produce 1,400ktpa of ethylene, 850ktpa of HDPE, 430ktpa of LLDPE, 760ktpa of polypropylene, 83ktpa of butadiene. QP has an 80% equity interest in the project, QAPCO 20%. The complex will help Qatar to exploit its abundant natural gas resources.
The BP-operated Azerbaijan International Operating Co. has awarded Emerson Process Management a ’multi-million-dollar’ contract to automate a new offshore platform in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. (More on Process Engineering)
Alfa Laval has won an SEK120m order to supply plate heat exchangers to a nuclear power plant in Russia. Delivery is scheduled to start in 2013 and be completed during 2015. The units will be used in the reactor island cooling systems, where some of them will operate in the system that cools down the main reactor in case of any shutdown.
Eni has announces a new ’giant’ natural gas discovery at the Mamba North 1 prospect, in Area 4 Offshore Mozambique, encountering a mineral potential of 7.5 tcf of gas in place. This new discovery follows its Mamba South discovery from October 2011. It is estimated that the total volume of gas in place reaches now about 850 billion cubic meters (30 tcf).
RWE Dea AG has obtained a permit to develop a total of six natural gas fields in the Algerian Sahara. Algeria’s ALNAFT authority issued the permit to develop the Reggane, Azrafil South-East, Kahlouche, Kahlouche South, Tiouliline and Sali gas fields in the Algerian desert. The total capital spending for the development project is around 3 billion US dollars. The production period will be more than 25 years. The Field Development Plan foresees a constant production rate of 8 million cubic metres of gas per day over a production period of 12 years.
DSM Engineering Plastics has moved its global HQ to Singapore. The company has development, sales and manufacturing facilities located in The Netherlands, the US, Japan, China, Taiwan, India, Belgium and Russia. President Roelof Westerbeek said the move “will help DSM Engineering Plastics to quicker anticipate the needs of our customers, both regionally and globally. In addition, it underlines the high importance that DSM puts on high growth economies as one of the key growth drivers.”
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. is executing four contracts from Arkema France for basic engineering services to support the provision of Arkema’s proprietary suspension and emulsion technology to four of its clients in China. Arkema’s technology is being used in four new PVC production plants in Hefei, Golmud, Etuoke Banner and Wu Lan Cha Bu. Jacobs’ PVC technology experts in its Dutch office in Leiden, and Arkema’s PVC technology team based in Lyon, France are currently performing the basic engineering work.
Work has begun on a 63km, underground pipeline to take water across Lincolnshire, UK.The £40m Anglian Water scheme will pipe water from the company’s Covenham reservoir near Louth down to Boston in order to secure supplies for the growing town. Work on the first 40km from Covenham to Anglian Water’s reservoir at Miningsby will be carried out this year, with the remaining 21km of main from Miningsby to Boston installed in 2013. When fully completed in two years time, the half-metre-wide pipeline will be able to carry 26 million litres of water south every day.
Turkish paper manufacturer Kahramanmara? Ka??t Sanayi ve Ticaret A? has selected Honeywell Process Solutions’ Experion MX quality control system (QCS) and Experion Process Knowledge control system (PKS) for a new paper mill based in Kütahya, Turkey. The facility, which is due to be completed in May 2012, will produce de-inked newsprint, as well as printing and writing paper. The PKS system will support startup and maintenance, while the QCS will be used to monitor consistent paper quality using constant measurement of all critical variables.
Scottish Water has launched a new division which will export the expertise it has built up in the past 10 years. The unit has won its first contract in Canada: to deliver training to operational staff in the water industry throughout Alberta. Scottish Water is delivering 15 training workshops on the management of water from source to tap. A Scottish Water team is in Alberta at the moment delivering the workshops, together with local and international partners contracted by Scottish Water.
Fluor Corp. has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction management contract by Joule Unlimited Inc., to design and build a biofuels demo facility in New Mexico. The facility is intended to scale up a pilot process currently producing liquid fuels via Joule’s novel technology, which uses sunlight to convert proprietary organisms and carbon dioxide into liquid hydrocarbons and ethanol.
Saudi Aramco and Dow Europe have awarded Foster Wheeler an engineering, procurement and construction management contract for a propylene oxide unit at Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia. This unit will be part of a world-scale, fully integrated chemicals complex, which will be constructed, owned and operated by Sadara Chemical Co. - a JV between Saudi Aramco and Dow. This contract is an extension to a FEED contract awarded to Foster Wheeler in 2008. The unit is expected to be completed during Q1/15.
Waternet has installed Rotork modulating electric valve actuators as part of an efficiency upgrade project at a large water treatment works serving Amsterdam. (More on Process Engineering)
The Iraq Crude Oil Export Expansion Project has achieved its “first oil ready for start-up” milestone, Foster Wheeler has announced.. This, it said is a significant step towards Iraq’s planned increase in crude exports. This first phase of the expansion is intended to increase Iraq’s crude oil export capacity by 1.8m bpd of additional production. A further increase of another 1.8m bpd in Iraq’s export capacity is intended to be delivered after phase 2.
Total E&P Norge AS has awarded Kvaerner an EPSC (engineering, procurement, supply and construction) contract of close to NOK1.2bn for a 21.4kt steel jacket system for the Hild Field in the Norwegian North Sea. The contract will be executed by Kvaerner’s yard in Verdal. The project will reach its peak manpower of over 400 in Q3/13 and be delivered in early 2014. Verdal has five oil and gas jackets currently in execution for ConocoPhillips in Norway, BP in UK and and the recently awarded Luno jacket for Lundin Norway AS.
Fluor Corp. is to provide project management services for the Mildred Lake Mine Replacement project for Syncrude Canada Ltd. in northern Alberta, Canada. Fluor booked $1.5bn into its backlog in Q4/11. The project involves replacement of existing mining facilities. Fluor will provide procurement, contracting and construction management services for infrastructure work and tie-ins to existing facilities. Work is due for completion in 2014.
Foster Wheeler has been awarded a contract by Discovery Gas Transmission LLC to provide design, engineering and technical services for a junction platform, facilities and associated pipelines within the Discovery System at South Timbalier 283, in the Gulf of Mexico. The platform, in approximately 350 feet of water, will be a four-pile structure with a two-level deck. It will be designed as an unmanned structure with a control system designed to shut down the facility in the event of an upset condition. The new infrastructure will enable the existing Discovery pipeline to operate at a higher pressure, both before and after the connection of the new Keathley Canyon pipeline.
Methanex Corp., a major global supplier of methanol, has awarded Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. a contract to provide engineering services for a potential methanol production facility in Louisiana. The plant would be relocated from Chile to Louisiana and could be operational in H2/14. Jacobs is currently executing site-specific engineering for the 225-acre location in Geismar, La. from its offices in Baton Rouge, La.; Santiago, Chile; and Marble Arch, London, UK.
Sira Consulting Ltd is to provide Premier Oil plc with a comprehensive range of compliance services with respect to ATEX 137 & DSEAR. As part of its compliance procedures, Premier identified that a review of the hazardous area drawings for Balmoral FPV was necessary, with a competent third party organization required to assist Premier with its responsibilities under ATEX 137 / DSEAR. Sira’s scope is to analyse and classify the platform and to prepare a report and updated drawings to guide the selection and installation of equipment to be used safely in that environment. The contract is anticipated to take 16 weeks commencing Jan 2012.
Conductix-Wampfler UK has secured a ’six-figure’ contract to deliver a system to power machinery at a new Bridon factory on Tyneside, which will produce large, complex multi-strand ropes for offshore, mining and crane applications. The work will involve a conductor bar being placed underground in a 300m trench. It will be protected by a flexible cover capable of withstanding the weight of a 25t forklift. Another recent deal, saw the Salford-based firm installing power supply systems to forklifts at the Heinz storage and distribution warehouse in Wigan.
Groupe Michelin has made Rockwell Automation its preferred partner for supplying industrial automation and controls to all of its tyre plants worldwide. The four-year deal includes the supply of Rockwell products and services; undertaking complete turnkey projects; manufacturing electrical enclosures; and the extension of Rockwell training services, support and repair to all Michelin plants.
Yorkshire Water has awarded a £28m contract for the design and build of a pioneering new energy scheme to a JV between Morgan Sindall and Grontmij. The contract, worth £25m to Morgan Sindall, is part of YW’s AMP5 large projects framework, to which the JV was appointed in September 2010. The project will be constructed this year and commissioned in early 2013. (More on Process Engineering)
Foster Wheeler has won a project management consultancy (PMC) contract for the Don Valley Power Project in Stainforth, Yorkshire, UK. The project is part of a carbon capture, utilisation and storage scheme being developed by 2Co Power (Yorkshire) Ltd. It comprises a 900MW IGCC power plant, CO2 transport, and storage combined with enhanced oil recovery. (More on Process Engineering)
Severn Trent Services (STS) has netted a framework agreement to provide its Tetra NSAF tertiary ammonia removal technology to support Thames Water Utilities Ltd’s multi-billion pound capital programme for AMP 5 (2010-15). The contract covers three years with optional extensions in two-year increments for the design, manufacture, supply, installation, testing and commissioning of wastewater treatment packaged plants.
Metso will supply a 33MW wood pellet-fired district heating plant to Tampereen Energiantuotanto Oy in the city of Tampere, Finland. The plant will be delivered by the Metso-Wärtsilä JV MW Power. The delivery will comprise a full-scope turn-key boiler plant solution, including all the necessary equipment and commissioning. The plant will be Finland’s largest pellet-fired plant, based on a technological solution that is the first of its kind in Finland. It will be used as a peak load and backup plant and will replace some of the capacity of the existing oil- and gas-fuelled boiler plants.
CB&I’s Lummus Technology unit has announced two separate contracts, with a combined value of $120m, with a client in Russia. The first contract was awarded in Q1/11, the second in January 2012. The scope of work includes detailed design and engineering and material supply for numerous heaters for a refinery modernisation project.
Foster Wheeler has been awarded a feasibility study by Albanian Refining & Marketing of Oil sh.a. (ARMO) relating to two refineries in Albania. ARMO intends to modernise the existing refineries at Ballsh and Fier to restore production to the original design capacity and produce transportation fuels in line with current EU regulations. The study is expected to be completed by mid-2012.
Centrica plc, the parent company of British Gas, has reached an agreement with ConocoPhillips to acquire its non-operated interests in the gas and oil producing Statfjord field and associated satellites for a total cash consideration of £142m, including £66m attributable to historic tax allowances.
Metso is to supply an automation package to French supplier Allimand for the new paper machine to be erected in the new Miquel y Costas’ plant in la Pobla de Claramunt, Spain. Delivery will comprise Metso’s DNA automation system for machine, process and drive controls, Process and Quality Vision for web inspection and web break analysis and IQ quality control system including MD and CD quality controls with IQ Moisturizer. Commissioning is due by Q4/12.
Alfa Laval has won an SEK230m order from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd to supply its Aalborg exhaust gas economisers to vessels built for AP Møller - Mærsk. Delivery is to be finalised during 2014. The waste heat recovery systems use exhaust gases from the main engine to produce steam for the turbine which generates electrical power. It can cover the electrical demand onboard the ship without operation of any of the generator sets.
KSB has increased sales by 7.2% in 2011 (vs 2010) to Euro2,079.1m, with growth in its three segments - pumps, valves and service. Order intake grew by 2.8% to Euro2,132.3m. Project business, it noted, was held back by investor reluctancew to build major new facilities, while earnings were impacted by severe price erosion and rising material and staff costs. KSB therefore expects FY 2011 earnings to be lower than in 2010 (Euro135.8m). For 2012, KSB predicts moderate growth overall in its markets.
SIPOS Aktorik has completed a major actuator retrofit for E.ON’s German power plant, Franken 1. In four weeks, 80 pipeline valves were replaced, 120 original actuators were removed and 200 new SIPOS Flash 5 electric actuators mounted and commissioned. The 790 MW plant’s control system is managed by Siemens.
Jacobs has reported net earnings of $89.7m on revenues of $2.63bn for its Q1/12 ended 30 Dec 2011 – compared to $65.8m on $2.36bn for Q1/11. Its Q1/12 backlog of $14.5bn, including a technical professional services component of $9.5bn, compared to $13.0bn and $7.9bn, a year earlier. President and CEO Craig Martin said, “The business continues to benefit from improving markets and solid sales and operations performance. Our outlook remains positive, as the number and quality of our prospects continue to grow.”
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has signed a resource protocol for the recruitment of employees from Magnox Ltd to Jacobs’ UKoperations. The deal gives Jacobs access to a skilled pool of talent to augment and develop its various teams of experts serving the industry. This protocol also increases the career choices available to Magnox staff who wish to continue to develop their careers in the nuclear industry. By providing future employment opportunities for its staff, Magnox can better retain essential skills at its sites.
Isle of Wight, UK-based, load cell manufacturer LCM Systems Ltd is increasing output, having finished its FY11 15% up on 2010 figures, – on higher demand especially for custom, specialist products. MD Steve Sargeant said: “With budgets tight companies are waiting until the last minute to order their load cells … Managing customer expectation is also important. Although our load cells can be a small part of a larger system, they are often ’mission critical [so] misleading customers on delivery dates can cause them serious problems.”
Unilever is re-launching its Flora Original and Flora Light spreads following a Euro35m investment into a new production facility to enhance both the taste and health credentials of the products. A new cool-blending process is said to preserve the natural goodness of the seeds used in the recipe – canola, linseed and sunflower.
In the US, Westinghouse Electric Co. has installed its reactor coolant pump (RCP) passive thermal shutdown seal in one dual-unit nuclear plant, and has received orders from five more utilities for a total of 37 reactor coolant pump (RCP) installations. (More on Process Engineering)
AMEC has a £10m contract to provide project services to BP for the Kinneil enhanced gas separation project, Grangemouth, Scotland. AMEC will help deliver mechanical, piping, electrical and instrumentation services, as well as construction and project management. The project is scheduled for mid-2013 and will create 120 construction jobs in the local area. The Kinneil Terminal stabilises crude oil from the North Sea Forties Field and processes and treats natural gas liquids from the St Fergus gas terminals. This latest project will enable it to process unstabilised crude oil, which has a high gas-to-oil ratio.
BASF is investing about Euro1bn to build a single-train 300ktpa TDI (toluene diisocyanate) plant and expand additional plants for its precursors at its site in Ludwigshafen, Germany. These include a new hydrogen chloride recycling plant as well as the expansion of plants for nitric acid, chlorine and synthesis gas. It also plans to expand the aromatics complex at the site for the supply of toluene. Production will start Q4/14. BASF plans to shut its 80ktpa TDI plant in Schwarzheide, Germany, when the new plant goes on stream.
ANH Refractories Europe is reporting a record increase in turnover from £4m to circa £7m in 2011, following contract wins in the Middle East and growth in UK and European markets. The Wirral, UK-based company manufactures materials used in linings for furnaces, kilns, incinerators and reactors operating at high temperatures. Its MD Peter Rooney noted major deals with oil and industrial firms in Saudi Arabia, growth in the petrochemicals sector and opportunities in the new energy generation and incineration markets, as well as the higher-value copper and aluminium industrial metals market.
Grimley Smith Associates, part of Fabricom GDF SUEZ (UK), is to design a bio-polymer demonstration facility that Plaxica plans to build at Wilton International on Teesside. Plaxica is a technology and licensing company focused on the production of biopolymers and chemicals from renewable resources, such as sugarcane, cereals and cellulose. The proposed demo plant will use energy efficient processes to produce second generation polylactic acid (PLA) based materials.
SABIC and Sinopec have confirmed a joint plan to build the new 260ktpa polycarbonate production complex at the Sinopec SABIC Tianjin Petrochemical Co. (SSTPC) in Tianjin, China. When the plant is fully operational in 2015, SABIC will become one of the world’s largest producers of polycarbonate. The co-operation deal between he companies allows SABIC to supply polycarbonate as feedstock to the company’s other plants in China and the Pacific region.
Bayer MaterialScience has begun construction of a Euro35m, multipurpose production plant for polyurethane coating raw materials at Chempark Leverkusen, Germany. The products hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) and isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) are used primarily for automotive and industrial coatings. The plant is due on stream in Q3/13.
Dow Corning has selected Siemens Industry Inc. as its strategic process automation partner. A global supply contract will feature Siemens Simatic PCS 7 as the strategic platform for Dow Corning’s batch, continuous and discrete process automation solutions. Siemens process control system manages the automation of all ancillary, upstream and downstream processes, while providing the mechanism to improve process efficiency resulting in improved production and reductions in the total cost of ownership.
Contracts & Projects Dec 11 / Jan 12
Contracts & Projects November 2011
Contracts & Projects October 2011
Contracts & Projects September 2011
Contracts & Projects August 2011
Contracts & Projects July 2011
Contracts & Projects June 2011
Contracts & Projects April 2011
Contracts & Projects March 2011
Contracts & Projects February 2011
Contracts & Projects January 2011
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Contracts & Projects November 2010
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Contracts & Projects September 2010
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