A salt extraction operation needed to move rapidly from an onshore to an offshore site equipped by 5 km of pipework. The company turned to circulate control associate Celeros to assist meet the distinctive circumstances encountered on the new salt well.
Overview of the two new water injection pumps for single and parallel operation, following set up and commissioning at the Frisia Zout BV site.
A new salt extraction plant off the north coast of Holland has been introduced on-line forward of schedule, preventing a potential halt in production when the prevailing onshore nicely developed issues. Frisia Zout BV, part of K+S Minerals and Agriculture GmbH, was capable of overcome the time and technical challenges of accelerating the project by working in partnership with Celeros Flow Technology (Celeros FT).
The bulk of the salt produced by Frisia Zout BV goes free to a 40,000-tonne storage facility for supply in bulk to trade. The remainder is packed in smaller portions to be used in meals manufacturing or made into cubes for water purification.
The salt is extracted underneath licence from the Dutch authorities. The current borehole licence
allowed K+S to extract salt from underground on the mainland. Due to regulatory adjustments, the brand new licence would solely permit extraction from subsea sources off the coast. Consequently, a new borehole and related plant was required on the Frisia Zout BV web site.
New challenges
K+S started planning for a new pump building in 2017, and development started in April 2020 with the purpose of bringing it onstream earlier than the prevailing extraction licence expired at the finish of 2021. However, unforeseen difficulties arose with the present onshore nicely, which meant that manufacturing would stop before anticipated. To bridge the hole, Frisia Zout BV started bringing in salt water by tanker, however this was an costly different. As a outcome, it grew to become crucial to bring the new offshore well onstream as soon as attainable.
Time pressures were not the only challenges the company faced. Due to the pure geology, the extraction path to the model new offshore resource was not a straight bore: it changed direction twice earlier than reaching the salt deposits. In truth, the new plant is fed by one of many deepest wells on the planet and has 5 km of pipework beyond the water injection pumps. As a result, the process water must be pumped in at excessive stress (250 barg) and at a excessive move price (450 m3/h) to extract the quantity of salt required, making the choice of pumps critical to success.
Total resolution
Frisia Zout BV has a protracted and established relationship with Celeros FT via the ClydeUnion Pumps brand, primarily based not only on the top quality of ITS OEM pumps but in addition on its ability to respond shortly to any operational points. The company turned to its trusted circulate control companion as soon as again for help in meeting the unique circumstances encountered on the new salt properly.
เกจวัดแรงดันไอน้ำ assessed the flow necessities for the water injection process on the new plant and verified that CUP-BB3 pumps could possibly be made to satisfy requirements. The pumps had been specified with Duplex stainless-steel casings because they would be working in a salt-laden setting. Celeros FT manufactured, supplied, installed and commissioned the mission-critical pumps for injecting water into the model new offshore salt cavern, assembly unusual necessities for prime strain and high move charges. In addition, they supported Frisia Zout BV in bringing an older pump back into service as a spare: assessing it and upgrading the casing to make sure it met the new obligation requirements.
Jouk Riemer, challenge manager for Frisia Zout BV, defined: “We have used CUP-BB3 pumps prior to now and found that their multistage centrifugal design provides better efficiency, compared to plunger pumps, for this application. We needed to use them again for the new venture. The Celeros FT group responded to the challenges magnificently, using their engineering expertise to identify the most effective solution to fulfill the pressure and move rates we required, delivering the pump skids to meet the model new construction schedule and helping us keep the venture on monitor.”
Future assured
The new salt extraction plant came online in December 2020. Its CUP-BB3 pumps meet the high stress and circulate rates required for the appliance and can run in parallel, which has improved productiveness. The availability of a spare pump offers additional confidence that production downtime might be minimal. The company’s capability to meet the accelerated venture deadline is especially spectacular when you suppose about that the Covid-19 pandemic was already affecting supplies of supplies and components. The Celeros FT team worked hard to make certain that this didn’t have any influence on their buyer.
Celeros FT also provided specialist engineering experience all through the set up and commissioning phase and will continue to ensure the pumps function satisfactorily throughout the plant’s 15-year lifespan, though the pump building could additionally be required to serve a couple of properly in future as demand for K+S high purity salt continues to grow. Easy substitute of wear and tear elements and ongoing service assist from Celeros FT will ensure that the BB3 pumps proceed to meet operational parameters throughout the extraction plant’s lifetime.
Riemer stated: “The mixture of high quality OEM equipment and sensible engineering expertise provided by Celeros Flow Technology was instrumental in delivering this challenge ahead of time. I’m satisfied it would have taken a lot longer to get what we required from one other pump producer. The company’s responsiveness was essential in assembly our revised deadline, decreasing prices and preserving extraction at this web site viable.” Riemer concluded: “This is the primary offshore extraction properly we now have developed however it has been a largely constructive expertise thanks to Celeros Flow Technology. They brought invaluable engineering experience and specialist pump knowledge to this venture and are a fundamental a half of its success.”
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