Industry News: November/December 2014

Gas Machinery Conference

The 2014 Gas Machinery Conference (GMC), organized by the Gas Machinery Research Council of the Southern Gas Association, was held in October in Nashville, Tennessee. With over 1,300 registered attendees and 143 exhibiting companies, this year’s GMC was the largest event since its inception over 30 years ago, indicating the continued strength of the U.S. natural gas industry.

GMC focuses traditionally on oil & gas compression machinery, such as reciprocating and centrifugal compressors, as well as gas turbine and gas engine mechanical drivers. The 2014 GMC event featured 26 technical papers, 15 short courses and technology updates from machinery manufacturers.

Presentations focused on the development of improved pulsation attenuation for reciprocating compressors, variable-speed power transmission technology using hydrodynamic torque converters, wet gas compression performance assessment, and centrifugal compressor restaging. Southwest Research Institute presented demonstrating that reciprocating compressors suction and discharge bottle design can be optimized to reduce their size and cost while minimizing damaging piping vibrations.

One of the more promising new technologies presented was a reciprocating compressor suction and discharge valve called the Straightflo valve by Zahroof Valves. It uses modular inserts with metal plates and coil springs to reduce valve pressure losses and mechanical valve wear. This valve is said to improve life-and-head-loss performance over conventional valves. Other noteworthy technology presentations included improved surge control technology and machinery screw pile mounting. Next year’s 2015 GMC will be held between October 4 and 7 in Austin, Texas.

GMC report by Klaus Brunn

Russian LNG push

Gazprom, the world’s second largest natural gas producer after Saudi Aramco, is seeking to expand beyond pipeline-based gas marketing into Asia via liquefied natural gas (LNG). Gazprom intends to increase its liquefaction capacity by 250% to 25 million tons per year by 2018, according to Anna Belova, GlobalData’s Lead Upstream Analyst. Upscaling LNG activities will mean encountering competition from Australia, the Middle East, and the U.S., as well as new Russian rivals.

Russian petroleum companies, Rosneft and Novatek, plan to bring new liquefaction plants online by 2018, said Belova. “The two companies are the main beneficiaries of recent regulatory changes in Russia, expanding gas export options beyond Gazprom. Based on announced development plans, Rosneft and Novatek will account for almost half of Russia’s liquefaction capacity by 2018.”

The analyst notes that the current roster of LNG projects coming online will give Russia 8% of global liquefaction capacity by 2018, making it difficult for Gazprom to secure its target of 15% total market share by that time. GlobalData believes that Russia has the potential to become a major LNG player due to gas reserves.

MHPS orders

Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) has received an order for four sets of 125 MW steam turbines and generators for a paper mill operated by the Asia Pulp & Paper Group (APP) in Indonesia. Shipments of the equipment commences in September 2015. The paper mill is to be constructed in Indonesia's South Sumatra state at a total cost of $2.6 billion. Plans call for the mill to have a production capacity of about 2 million tons of paper per year.

MHPS has also received an order for two sets of a 693 MW-class steam turbine and generator (STG) for a project to construct a coal-fired, ultra-supercritical-pressure thermal power generation plant in Safi, Morocco. The two STG sets, for Units No.1 and No.2, will be delivered through Daewoo Engineering & Construction Company in Korea that is undertaking engineering, construction and procurement (EPC) on the project.

The two thermal units are slated to begin operation in 2018. The 1,386 MW power plant is currently being built by Safi Energy for the city of Safi, some 250 kilometers southwest of Casablanca. This marks the first ultra-supercritical-pressure thermal power plant to be built in Africa.

In addition, MHPS has received an order from Grupo Dragon in Mexico to build a 25 MW geothermal power plant in Mexico slated to go onstream in 2016. MHPS will be responsible for engineering, manufacture, procurement and installation of major components, including the steam turbine and balance of plant (BOP), as well as civil engineering work and commissioning.

Finally, the new Western Hemisphere headquarters of MHPS Americas will be in Lake Mary, Florida. The offices will accommodate shared administrative services.

Dresser-Rand sold

Siemens agreed to buy Dresser-Rand Group (DRC) for $7.6 billion including debt in order to expand its oil & gas equipment presence in the U.S. Siemens Chief Executive Officer Joe Kaeser is said to be seeking more deals intended to help the company capitalize on the boom in shale gas. Meanwhile, Siemens has agreed to sell its 50% stake in the BSH Bosch and Siemens Hausgeraete GmbH joint venture to Robert Bosch GmbH for $3.85 billion.

Global R&D center

Schneider Electric has opened a 240,000ft2 North American research and development center in Andover, Massachusetts. The Boston One Campus will serve as the company’s North America headquarters and is built to house about 750 employees. Laurent Vernerey, President and CEO of Schneider Electric’s North America Operations, will relocate there.

Boston One incorporates $8 million of Schneider Electric’s products and is expected to achieve about a 30% operating cost reduction in its first year. The facility is LEED Silver certified by the U.S. Green Building Council and leverages Schneider Electric’s SmartStruxure building management system, EcoAisle and EcoBreeze cooling systems, uninterruptible power supplies and Altivar variable speed for HVAC.

Flare gas project

A joint venture of GE and Ferus Natural Gas Fuels (NGF) has announced the expansion of a pilot project to capture flare gas and use it to power up to six of Statoil’s drill rigs and one frack fleet in North Dakota. This is the first step by Statoil to move into full commercial adoption of the NGF joint venture’s Last Mile Fueling Solution to reduce emissions and provide cost-savings.

Statoil’s Last Mile pilot project has been in place for almost a year. During this time, it has been capturing natural gas that would otherwise be flared, and has used it to provide power for operations. The company anticipates this expansion will increase flare gas capture to three-to-five million standard cubic feet per day (scfd) by the end of 2014.

North Dakota’s Bakken is one of the key regions where energy companies are focusing on unconventional exploration and production. As these emerging oil fields often lack the pipeline infrastructure to store and transport natural gas produced with oil, operators are flaring off up to 30% — or 300 million cubic feet per day — of the associated natural gas produced in the Bakken field alone.

Last Mile will provide natural gas fueling MHPS steam turbine (Continued on p. 10) by combining GE’s CNG In A Box, and the operational and logistics expertise of Ferus NGF. Both companies are in discussions with other players in the region about using Last Mile, with the potential of eliminating another 10 million scfd of flared gas, enough to fuel more than 100 drill rigs in North Dakota.

GE Oil & Gas is also supplying the main refrigeration compressors, variable-speed drive electric motors and other electrical equipment for two customized LNG liquefaction trains, each of which will produce a base volume of 4.4 metric tons per annum (mtpa) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at the Freeport LNG export project in Southeast Texas.

In addition, GE is providing financing to support the project through pre-construction engineering and design. The order encompasses six centrifugal compressors, six 75 MW synchronous electric motors, six variable speed drives (LCI technology), electrical equipment, such as gas-insulated switchgear, harmonic filters, e-houses and auxiliary electrical equipment, as well as LNG plant and power grid modeling.

GE Oil & Gas also will provide France-based energy company Total S.A. with compressors for a refinery off-gas (ROG) expansion project at its Antwerp, Belgium, refinery complex. The project is part of Total’s $1.3 billion overall investment to expand and enhance the refinery capabilities.

The compression equipment, ordered by the Italian EPC company, Kinetics Technology, will be used to convert lowvalue refinery off-gases into a low-cost petrochemical feedstock by recovering hydrocarbons that would otherwise be burned as fuel.

This ROG project enables Total to recover hydrocarbons by processing them as feed streams in the existing naphtha cracker, replacing the need for expensive oil-based naphtha feeds. The $33-million order includes multiple trains of motor-driven ethylene and propylene refrigeration, saturated and unsaturated off-gas compressors and turboexpander- driven compressor.

Atlas Copco order

Thirty Atlas Copco GA series oil-injected screw compressors, including GA 355, GA 250, GA 132 and GA 110 models, are operating in Hanking Industrial Group Co. mines in northeast China.

With millions of tons of proven iron ore reserves, Hanking operates more than 10 iron mining facilities with an annual capacity of about 2 million tons of iron powder. Atlas Copco developed customized solutions for the stationary air compressors running in Hanking and designed compressor stations with GA series oil-injected screw compressors installed at ground level. They can operate at temperatures up to 55°C.

APR plant in Australia APR Energy has signed a contract for a peaking power plant in Port Hedland, Pilbara, Western Australia. It features four GE TM2500+ dual-fuel turbines. The Horizon Power plant will run for at least 30 months, serving as a bridge until TransAlta Energy (Australia) develops a permanent power plant in early 2017. The plant was designed for temperatures up to 48°C (118°F).

Frame 7EA gas turbine parts

EthosEnergy has completed a contract for the supply of manufactured combustion components for TransCanada’s Ocean States Power Plant in Burrillville, Rhode Island. The combustion liners and transition pieces were installed in a GE Frame 7EA gas turbine. TransCanada required short-cycle delivery of components for a scheduled outage.

Ingersoll Rand buys compressor line

Cameron has entered into an agreement to sell its centrifugal compression division to Ingersoll Rand. Cameron is believed to be divesting its compressor manufacturing assets to focus on its core markets. This follows from an earlier sale of reciprocating compressor products to GE Oil & Gas.

GE orders

U.S. power generator Exelon purchased four GE 7HA gas turbines, two GE D600 steam turbines, six generators and a contractual service agreement for the Wolf Hollow and Colorado Bend gas combined-cycle projects in Texas. This is the first U.S. order for GE’s HA turbine, adding to recent orders from Japan, France and Russia.

This will add 2,000 MW; equipment is expected to ship in 2016, with the plants operational in 2017. The 7HA.02 gas turbine offers output of 330 MW per unit, a net combined-cycle efficiency of more than 61%, and is said to provide fuel savings compared with F-class technology of over $8 million per year.

Further GE orders: GE aeroderivative gas turbines have been chosen to power First Generation Corporation’s (First Gen) Avion power plant in the Philippines. The 97 MW plant will use GE LM6000-PC Sprint gas turbines running on gas and diesel fuel. It may use resources from the power producer’s planned LNG terminal in Batangas.

Siemens orders

Siemens Energy has received an order from Chengdu Cryogenic Liquidation Equipment for two compressor trains for an LNG project in Inner Mongolia, China with an annual capacity of 400,000 tons. This marks the fifth order for Siemens from Chengdu Cryogenic. The project is planned to be put into operation in December 2015.

Further, three Siemens gas turbines were recently handed over to Dow Stade at Dow's new 163 MW cogeneration power plant in Stade, Germany. The Siemens scope of supply comprised three SGT-800 industrial gas turbines as well as one SST-600 steam turbine. Handover of the steam turbine is scheduled for October 2014.

Besides electricity, the new cogeneration unit will supply process steam for chemical production processes. As part of the cogeneration site, each of the three gas turbines is connected to a downstream, supplementaryfired heat recovery steam generator (HRSG), which feeds steam to the existing steam turbine as well as to the new steam turbine.

Siemens also opened its first Flex-Plant in Texas. The Panda Temple Power Project in Temple, Texas is now in commercial operation. Siemens supplied the combined cycle power plant along with Bechtel. The multishaft plant has a capacity of 858 MW. Siemens supplied two SGT6-5000F gas turbines, one SST6-5000 steam turbine, two SGen6-1000A generators, one SGen6-200H generator, instrumentation and control, and two Benson HRSGs (by NEM USA).

Together with its Korean consortium partner Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co., Siemens handed over into commercial operation the Shuweihat S3 combined cycle power plant (CCPP) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The owner is Shuweihat Asia Power Company (SAPCO). Shuweihat S3 has a capacity of 1,600 MW. Siemens supplied four SGT5-4000F gas turbines, two SST5-4000 steam turbines, six generators (SGen5-1000A and SGen5- 2000H), the electrical and SPPA-T3000 I&C system. Ansaldo Algerian contract

Ansaldo Energia has been awarded a contract to supply an open cycle power plant in Algeria. SPE SpA, a Sonelgaz group company, assigned the contract to Ansaldo Energia to supply the Ain Djasser III plant with two gas turbines of about 170 MW each plus generators. The plant will be situated in the province of Batna in central Algeria about 350 km south of the capital Algiers. In addition, Ansaldo Energia is working in a consortium with HDEC (Hyundai Engineering & Construction) to supply Mirfa International Power in Abu Dhabi with three AE94.3A gas turbines, two MT20 steam turbines, five air-cooled turbogenerators and auxiliary systems.

SoftInWay New York office

SoftInWay has established a permanent office in New York, NY. This is the company’s second U.S. office, with headquarters in Burlington, MA. The company has further facilities in Switzerland, India and Ukraine. The New York office will act as the global sales, marketing & strategic development headquarters.

Servicing Rolls-Royce compressors

Rolls Wood Group (a joint venture between Rolls-Royce and Wood Group), has secured a long-term maintenance agreement from Chevron Thailand Exploration & Production Ltd (Chevron) to service Rolls- Royce industrial gas generators operating at four separate offshore production facilities located in the Pattani Basin, 120 miles from Thailand’s southern coastline. This fiveyear, multi-million contract encompasses technical and engineering support, field service, repair of spares and major overhaul of Chevron’s varied fleet of eleven Rolls- Royce gas generators.

Kobelco service shop

Kobelco Compressors America has opened a service center in Houston, TX. It will provide quicker turn-around for the company’s primary customer base in Texas and the surrounding states.

Plant automation

Emerson Process Management is providing automation to improve reliability at the Longview Power plant in Maidsville, WV. Under the contract, Emerson will remove the existing plant controls and I/O, and engineer and install its Ovation control technology. Commissioned in 2011, the 695 MW, coal-fired supercritical unit serves Morgantown and surrounding communities. Commissioning is slated for June 2015. Emerson will also provide HART smart instrumentation, including its Fisher Fieldvue Digital Valve Controllers, Rosemount Guided Wave transmitters and wireless devices.

Rolls-Royce LNG order

BG Group has selected the Rolls-Royce Trent 60 DLE gas turbine as the driver for refrigeration compressors in the proposed Lake Charles LNG Export project in Louisiana. Both the equipment and a service contract are expected to be activated in the first half of 2015. The three LNG trains will use four Trent 60 DLEs as part of the Air Products C3MR refrigeration process. Each train will employ two gas turbines driving propane compressors, and two driving mixed refrigerant compressors for a total of 12 Trent 60 DLE gas turbines in the plant.

GEA acquired

Triton has finalized its acquisition of GEA Heat Exchangers. The heat exchanger business will be further developed, as well as a new brand name, as part of an autonomous group within Triton.

New CEO at MAN Diesel & Turbo

On January 1, 2015, Dr. Ewe Lauber will become the new CEO of MAN Diesel & Turbo, located in Augsburg, Germany. The 47-year-old Lauber was head of the oil & gas business Unit and took over the global sales and after sales position on the Executive Board in 2014. He joined the company in 2000.

ABB test center

ABB has launched a Center of Competence test facility to assess components for turbine control and turbine system retrofits in gas, steam and hydro-generation plants. The newly upgraded test lab is located in Genoa, Italy. Testing will be done on parameters, such as speed and vibration measurement, and control valve actuation. The facility enables specialists to test the components regulating high- and low-pressure servomotors and examine vibration and speed rotation to verify the compatibility of non-ABB parts in retrofit projects.

TMEIC’s U.S. manufacturing

Toshiba Mitsubishi-Electric Industrial Systems Corporation (TMEIC) has formed a manufacturing subsidiary, TMEIC Power Electronics Products Corporation, to manufacture PV inverters and MV variable frequency drives in North America. Fabrication of PV inverters commenced in late 2014, followed by MV drives in the Spring of 2015 at the Houston, Texas-based facility. Production will start with Solar Ware PV Inverters and 4.16 kV TMEIC MV drives. www.tmeic.com