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Contracts & Projects Tracker: April 2012

8 May 2012

Clough AMEC has won an AU$30m contract for the operability, reliability and maintainability (ORM) component of Chevron’s Wheatstone facility offshore Western Australia. This involves building the maintenance database, assuring operational readiness for the offshore facility, including writing of all operations procedures, all training and development programmes, and operations engineering and support services.

Under a two-year frame agreement, Aker Solutions will be the sole supplier for all of Egyptian oil giant Bapetco’s surface wellhead equipment, installation and lifecycle services operations in the Western Desert of Egypt. The contract will be delivered out of Aker Solutions’ surface products manufacturing centre in Batam, Indonesia. In 2009, Aker Solutions upgraded the Batam facility in order to increase its production capacity.

CFB Boilers has completed a major steam boiler plant upgrade for the UK’s National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) in South Mimms. NIBSC specialises in the field of biological standardisation, developing and producing over 90% of the international standards used to assure the quality of biological medicines. “It is important that we lead from the front in terms of energy and environmental responsibility,” explains Jude Hughes environment and energy manager at NIBSC.

Williams Olefins LLC has awarded CB&I a $300m contract for a petrochemicals expansion project in Geismar, Louisiana. The scope of the award includes the license and basic engineering for the ethylene technology, the supply of the cracking furnaces, and the detailed EPC of the expansion project. Plant capacity is expected to be increased from 1.35 to 1.95bn pounds per year.

Jacobs Engineering has won a contract from Afipsky Refinery, in the Krasnodarskij region of Russia, to develop a basic engineering package for an amine regenerator unit, a sour water stripper and an expected 55 tonnes/day sulfur recovery unit (SRU). All three units are part of a refinery extension project which includes a hydrotreater unit and a visbreaker unit. The SRU design is based on Jacobs’ Euroclaus process and is being executed from Jacobs’ Dutch office in Leiden. Jacobs is working with the Moscow-based EPC contractor, Giprogazoochistka – an engineer of gas treating units and SRU’s.

Clough AMEC is to provide maintenance support to the 1.3bn m3/yr onshore gas treatment plant and the offshore unmanned wellhead platform for Eni’s Blacktip project, supplying gas to Australia’s Northern Territory. It will support routine and campaign maintenance along with consultancy services, engineering, procurement, and management of subcontractors and fabrication. The three-year contract, with extension options, will be supported out of Clough AMECs Darwin office.

Sapppi has awarded ABB a five-year ‘maintenance improvement agreement’ to manage and improve all maintenance activities at their Nijmegen coated fine paper mill in The Netherlands. Under the performance-based deal, ABB is to manage all maintenance operations to improve overall productivity and equipment reliability at the mill, and retain and further develop all existing maintenance staff and management. (More on Process Engineering)

Sheffield Forgemasters’ offshore division Vulcan SFM has recently completed the fabrication of cast steel pad-eyes into large tubular sections made of rolled steel-plate for Offshore Group Newcastle. The tubular sections form part of the leg of a North Sea platform which will be lifted into place using the cast pad-eyes. (More on Process Engineering)

NXP Semiconductors Manchester has installed cooling towers from Carter Environmental Engineers. Initially, two of Carter’s forced draught towers, running at 11kW, replaced systems with dual-speed motors, running at 30kW high speed, which would have proved uneconomic to retrofit with energy-saving invertors. After 12 months, two more Carter cooling towers, in 304 stainless steel, were installed - as were the first two - by Portobello Engineering. The old cooling towers had been overflowing and were hard to maintain, as the pack could not be removed easily for inspection - whereas the new design, with open troughs and sumps sloping towards the drain make cleaning and inspection easier.

TOTAL has awarded Foster Wheeler an engineering, procurement and construction management services contract for the revamp of a hydrodesulfurisation unit at its refinery in Antwerp, Belgium. The revamp is to enable the refinery to produce jet fuel with a sulfur content below 30ppm, and diesel with a sulfur content below 10ppm, in line with EU requirements.

Sheffield Forgemasters has won a Euro2m euro order from Schuler Pressen GmbH to manufacture components for a screw press for making automotive parts. The 300-tonne table and 288-tonne headpiece is to be completed by Q3/13. Forgemasters said it is one of the few facilities in the UK with the physical capacity to finish machine the components and the only one in Europe able to produce castings of this size and weight.

Severn Trent Services - Apliclor has been awarded a contract by the Water Consortium Bilbao - Bizkaia to supply three Aquadiox chlorine dioxide generators for the Venta Alta drinking water treatment plant in Arrigorriaga – one of the largest water treatment plants in Spain with a capacity of 7m3/s. Each of the chlorine dioxide generators has a treatment capacity of 15 kg/h to supplement two existing systems, each with a treatment capacity of 7.2 kg/h.

Petronas has awarded Fluor Corp. a contract to provide FEED services for a new LNG regasification terminal in Malaysia. The new terminal will supply gas to an adjacent 300-megawatt combined cycle power plant in the town of Lahad Datu, Sabah.

Foster Wheeler has signed a ‘strategic umbrella agreement’ with Dow Chemical Co. for the provision of project management, consulting, engineering, procurement, construction management, and construction services. The agreement has an initial term of three years and provides support by Foster Wheeler to selected Dow global capital projects across its speciality chemicals, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses.

Linde is to supply Sadara Chemical Co. with CO, H2 and ammonia at a chemical complex now being built by Sadara in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, which will be the world’s largest chemical complex ever built in a single phase. The on-site gases supply contract includes a HyCO facility for the production of CO and H2 plus an ammonia plant. Linde will be investing $380m in the project. Sadara is a JV developed by Saudi Aramco and Dow Chemical Co.

GSK is to invest more than £500m in the UK across its manufacturing sites to increase production of key active ingredients for its pharmaceutical products and vaccines. The decision is expected to create up to 1,000 new jobs over the lifetime of the projects. (More on Process Engineering)

The UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has formally awarded Babcock Dounreay Partnership - a JV between Babcock, CH2M Hill and URS - the contract to manage the decommissioning, demolition and clean-up of the Dounreay nuclear site. The award follows a share transfer on 1 April, making BDP the new parent body organisation for Dounreay, having officially taken ownership of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd. (More on Process Engineering)

E.ON and RWE npower have simultaneously withdrawn from Horizon Nuclear Power - their 50/50 joint venture, which had planned to deliver around 6,000MW of new nuclear power station capacity in the UK by 2025. The Gloucester-based JV was focused on two projects, in Wylfa and Oldbury, which were together expected to cost over £15bn. (More on Process Engineering)

Cynar plc has awarded Rockwell Automation an $11m contract to design and build a plastics-to-fuel conversion plant in Bristol, UK for SITA UK ltd - a Cynar customer and partner in the development. Cynar has developed a technology that converts end-of-life plastics into fuel. The contract includes the design and build of process skids, automation architecture, software, power control and engineering/startup services in one fully integrated solution, using the Rockwell’s PlantPAx process automation system. A Rockwell team has worked with Cynar over the past two years developing the engineering, modularisation and process improvements of its conversion plant.

BP is to sell its interests in its southern gas assets (SGA) in the UK North Sea to Perenco UK Ltd for $400m - part of a BP plant to divest $38bn of assets between 2010-13. Including the agreement to sell SGA, the company has now announced divestments with an expected value totalling approximately $23bn. BP said it expected that impacted employees working for SGA would transfer to Perenco.

ANH Refractories Europe has secured a major new deal to supply products to the Middle East petchem market. The firm’s Bromborough, UK plant manufactures materials used in linings for furnaces, kilns and incinerators operating at high temperatures. The deal has been signed through ANH’s licenced partner BFIM, based in Saudi Arabia. As part of the deal major contracts have been secured with customers including SABIC.

ExxonMobil Upstream Research Co. has licensed its multi-zone stimulation technology (MZST) well treatment process to a subsidiary of Weatherford Int. Ltd. The MZST process can be used to rapidly and reliably stimulate multiple zones in a single operation, yielding improved well economics. The MZST process can be particularly beneficial for hydraulic fracturing operations in tight gas, shale gas and coal bed methane wells that target multiple reservoir zones, thick reservoir sections or long reservoir intervals where multiple stimulation treatments are required.

Chronos BTH has recently replaced an old H17 manual bagging scale with a new SpeedAC NXT controlled H17E automatic bagging weigher at Sheffield-based pet food company Aristocrat Pet Supplies. Designed to integrate into existing H17 installations, the H17E supplied for his project has been mounted on rails. This allows the H17E to be quickly moved out of the way to provide access to the associated elevating equipment. An extended electrical supply cabling and compressed air supply pipework that will move with the unit has eliminated the need to disconnect everything before the H17E is moved.

Balfour Beatty Workplace has a £7m/year contract to deliver total facilities management (TFM) services across UK Power Networks property portfolio. The contract, which is for three years, with the opportunity to extend for a further two, covers about 80 UK sites across London, the South East and East Anglia. The TFM contract will deliver the company’s network operations and will also provide support to its back office functions and its executive based at its HQ in central London. Balfour Beatty mobilised the contract and transferred more than 270 staff from the client and existing providers and services started on 24 Feb.

Siemens Industry Automation is providing another Zimpro wet air oxidation (WAO) system to treat wastewater at Sinopec Yangzi Petrochemical Co. Ltd’s facility, near the Yangzi River in Jiangsu Province, China. The most recent of seven Zimpro WAO systems installed at Sinopec facilities will be used to treat sulfidic spent caustic wastewater streams generated in the production of petrochemicals. The WAO system is designed to eliminate odorous sulfide pollutants and generate a biodegradable effluent that can be discharged to conventional biological wastewater treatment. The Yangzi system, which will treat around 4 m3/hr (17.6 gpm) of wastewater, is to be operational by the end of 2012.

Westinghouse Electric Co. has completed fabrication of all 157 fuel assemblies and related components needed to operate the first-ever AP1000 nuclear power plant, Sanmen Unit 1, in Zhejiang province, China. The fuel assemblies were completed at Westinghouse’s Columbia fuel fabrication facility in Columbia, South Carolina,and delivered to the Sanmen Nuclear Power Company (also in Columbia) for later shipment to China. Sanmen Unit 1 is scheduled to begin generating electricity in 2013.

Kuwait Gulf Oil Co. has engaged Penspen Group to project manage the detailed design and construction of a new gas & condensate export system (GCES) from Khafji, Saudi Arabia, to Kuwait. Penspen will manage EPC contractor Technip. The project is to deliver condensate and gas product to Kuwait, assist in reducing gas flaring, and recover hydrocarbon resources. The new export system will include: Gas facilities carrying 40MMscfd of gas via pipeline. 110km of 12-inch diameter export pipeline, of which about 47km will be offshore. Penspen will also assist with the commissioning of the final scheme.

BP is to lease thousands of acres in northeast Ohio for future oil and gas production in the Utica/Point Pleasant shale formation. BP signed an agreement to lease about 84,000 acres in Trumbull County, Ohio with a group representing area mineral owners. The Utica/Point Pleasant shale is at a depth of about 6,000 feet and of similar thickness to the Marcellus. The recoverable Utica shale potential is estimated at between 1.3 and 5.5bn barrels of oil and between 3.8 and 15.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. BP already has active shale positions in the Woodford, Haynesville, Fayetteville and Eagle Ford.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. is to provide project management consulting (PMC) services for a new pipe rolling mill near Corpus Christi, Texas for Tianjin Pipe (Group) Corp. (TPCO). Jacobs did not disclose the contract value but estimated the total programme value at around $1bn. EPC work is expected to involve professional services, materials and/or labour from the US, Europe and China. The Texas plant is to be delivered with phased completions between 2012 and end of 2014.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has received a $50m contract from Teck Metals Ltd to design and supply a new sulfuric acid plant for its Trail operation located in British Columbia, Canada. The new acid plant is replacing two aging plants at the site and is expected to improve operating reliability and flexibility, reduce downtime and maintenance costs, and improve environmental performance. The contract includes the design of the complete sulfuric acid plant contact section, including catalytic DeNO(x) system, as well as supply of all equipment and the majority of materials. The plant includes Jacobs’ proprietary Chemetics equipment throughout, including stainless steel converter (with dual internal exchangers), radial flow gas-gas exchangers, acid coolers and distributors and piping.

Aker Solutions has been awarded an NOK105m contract by A/S Norske Shell, to deliver subsea connection systems for production flowlines and umbilicals for the Draugen field on the Norwegian continental shelf. Management, engineering and procurement of the systems will be performed at Aker’s head office in Fornebu, Norway. Equipment deliveries will be made from 2012-13. The Draugen field is about 140km from Kristiansund, Norway, at a sea depth of 250 metres.

Alfa Laval has won an SEK130m plate heat exchanger order from a ‘big oil company’ in Brazil. Delivery is scheduled for 2012. The heat exchangers will be installed at offshore production platforms where they will be used for heat recovery in the main separation process. Many of the offshore oil fields outside of Brazil contain heavy crude oil mixed with large amounts of water, which requires a lot of heat when separating the water from the oil. Heat exchangers make it possible to recover heat from the process itself to heat up the heavy crude oil, resulting in a very energy efficient solution.

Guodian Northeast Environmental Protection Industry Group Ltd has selected Siemens Industry Automation to supply an IPS composting system using a new ‘mechanically enhanced biodrying’ (MEB) process for the Shenyang wastewater treatment plant sludge treatment project in Shenyang, China. According to Siemens, this will be the largest IPS composting facility ever built, and one of the largest sludge treatment processes in the world using non-thermal processing. The IPS composting system is scheduled to be commissioned in the fall of 2012.

Xylem, formerly ITT Water & Wastewater, has won all four lots of a major new Thames Water framework agreement. The FA1003 agreement covers a period of three years, with an option for a further two years. The four lots include standard efficiency 9” membrane disc diffusers in lot 1; high efficiency modular diffusers in lot 2; interconnecting air main pipework and valves in lot 3 which is optional and replacement membranes and aeration grid spare parts in lot 4. The equipment will be used across all of Thames Water’s sewage and water treatment sites.

Xylem has recently commenced work on all five of the Thames Tideway improvement projects. The five major AMP 5 extensions involve sewage treatment works (STWs): Beckton STW near Barking; Crossness STW near Esher; Mogden STW in south west London; Longreach STW near Dartford; and Riverside STW near Rainham.

The UK government is investign £15m in new R&D projects and studies that will stimulate innovation and growth in the UK’s food industries. Intended to increase the efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness of the food processing and manufacturing sector, the Food Processing and Manufacturing Efficiency competition for collaborative R&D funding will be managed by the Technology Strategy Board (www.innovateuk.org), Defra, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Scottish government. The competition will open on 11 June and expressions of interest must be submitted by 18 July.

Jacobs Engineering Group is to design and supply a new sulfuric acid plant for Vale Canada Ltd’s Sudbury smelter in Ontario, Canada. The $55m contract includes the design of the complete sulfuric acid plant contact section, as well as supply of all equipment. The plant will use Jacobs’ proprietary Chemetics equipment, including stainless steel converter, radial flow gas-gas exchangers, acid coolers and distributors and piping. The new plant is part of a project to cut SO2 emissions at the Sudbury site by more than 70%.

SIPOS Aktorik has secured a contract to supply valve control technology to a district heating network in Finland. Via the local partner, the supplier of electric actuation technology has been selected to supply the City of Seinäjoki with actuators equipped with Modbus RTU. For the project, SIPOS is providing fieldbus communication technology to support modernisation of the 250km district heating system, which has replaced an existing district heating system that used hand-controlled valves with a radio controlled solution.

Rockwell Automation has purchased SoftSwitching Technologies, a provider of industrial power quality detection and protection systems, based in Middleton. SoftSwitching systems identify and correct brief power disruptions called “voltage sags’. These can cause computerised machinery to go off-line, precision instruments to fail, and control systems to shut down eg in the automotive, food, beverage and pharma industries.

Priorclave is to supply five medium-capacity laboratory autoclaves to Imperial College London’s new scientific research building, the Imperial Centre for Translational and Experimental Medicine, which will be officially opened later this year. The EH450 units feature a 450 litre capacity chamber can cope with high throughputs and accommodate large and bulky items.

Linde Group is to supply air gases to chemicals producer Dahua Group on Songmu Island, Dalian, China. Investing around Euro70m in the project, Linde will acquire and operate the customer’s two existing air separation units (ASUs) in Dalian. Linde will also build a new ASU on site with a production capacity of 38,000 normal cubic metres of oxygen per hour (Nm3/h), due on stream in 2014.

The UK food & beverage sector is showing a continuing trend to upgrade existing assets to achieve greater efficiencies, particularly in the the dairy sector, notes Protel’s latest Capex Market Trend Report. Dairy Crest, it said, is currently involved in multiple investment programmes including process upgrades at Stonehouse and Foston, and a new processing plant at Kirkby awaiting final sanction. Plans originated by Arla Foods for a super dairy in Aylesbury have now been sanctioned; Milk Link has continued with a redevelopment programme; the new First Milk creamery in Kintyre, Argyll is moving forward; and NOM Dairy UK is investing heavily in its Telford yogurt processing plant.

The UK beverage sector is focusing on automation and debottlenecking, notes Protel’s latest Capex Market Trend Report. Companies such as Coca Cola and Britvic, it said, are increasing the efficiency of existing plants rather than carrying out major new investments. Princes Foods has completed the acquisition of Premier Canning Lines and have a series of upgrades at Wisbech and Spalding, involving production and infrastructure upgrades, due for sanction Q1/12. Provexis has acquired Science in Sport and are fast-tracking a redevelopment project in Blackburn. Kerry Group has acquired Cargill Flavour Systems and is thought likely to embark on an investment initiative for expansion or consolidation.

Foster Wheeler has been awarded the basic design and FEED contract by Complejo GNL del Este for a new LNG receiving terminal and jetty to be built in San Pedro de Marcorís, Dominican Republic. FW had completed a feasibility study for the selection of the most suitable technology for the new terminal, which will be designed for a send-out capacity of 240m standard cubic feet per day (MMscf/d), with an LNG storage tank of 160k cubic metres. The design will also consider future expansion(s) up to 700 MMscf/d

Alfa Laval has won an SEK60m order from Wärtsilä Corp. to supply heat exchangers, boilers and separators for a combined cycle power plant to be built in Central America. Delivery is scheduled for 2012. The heat exchangers will be used for engine cooling, the separators for oil treatment and the boiler system for recovering heat from the engines’ exhaust gases to produce steam for the steam turbine.

Contracts & Projects March 2012

Contracts & Projects February 2012

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 May 2011

Contracts & Projects April 2011

Contracts & Projects March 2011