Utility Systems News

Federal, tribal, state and local officials joined NOAA leadership to cut the ribbon on the agency’s newly renovated port facility in Ketchikan, Alaska. The celebration was held to dedicate the facility and recognize the important partnerships in the area.The facility will provide vessel support for NOAA research ships. The facility will also support NOAA Ship Fairweather, which is homeported in Ketchikan.“Having a home base for NOAA to operate from in Alaska is integral to our science…

US-based construction company McCarthy Building Companies began construction in Oct. on a new container yard within Port Houston, located in Pasadena, Texas.According to a press release from the 150 years old company, the project with Port Houston, will be a 45-acre expansion on the existing Bayport Container Terminal in continued efforts to grow and modernize the port.The development will aid in the port’s ability to serve the continued growth of Houston’s container exports of finished petrochemical, agricultural and other products made in Texas and imports of consumer items like food, clothing and furniture to support the fast-growing regional population.“McCarthy is proud of our long-standing relationship with Port Houston…

Providing an update on the status of the on-going Greater Stella Area (“GSA”) development programme Ithaca Energy informed that the floating production facility (FPF-1) modifications programme undertaken by Petrofac in the Remontowa shipyard in Poland is in the final stages of completion, with only a limited number of commissioning activities requiring close out prior to sail-away. Commissioning operations on the FPF-1 have continued to progress well over recent weeks and are now materially complete. The operations team have been living on the vessel since May, the marine works have been finished and the engineering teams are in the process of closing out handover of the various processing and utilities systems to the operations team.

Jay Cashman, Inc., Quincy, Massachusetts, is being awarded a $14,321,000 firm-fixed-price contract for USS Constitution, Berth 1 pier repairs at Charlestown Navy Yard. This project will provide a safe mooring for USS Constitution and the provision of safe visitor access to the ship. The work includes demolition, removal and disposal of existing site features, hazardous materials, waterfront structures, utility systems and the provision of steel sheet pile bulkhead, pile supported pier, fender systems, mooring hardware, mooring dolphins, grading, paving and cobblestone pavement, drainage systems, water systems, electric power and lighting systems, landscape features, and incidental related work.

Longer than four football fields, as big as six Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and almost as tall as the Taipei 101 skyscraper, Royal Dutch Shell PLC is hoping that its record-setting, game-changing floating liquid natural gas (FLNG) facility will serve as a prelude to a killing in the offshore LNG market. It’s not alone. Many industry observers believe FLNG will do for gas offshore what fracking has done for shale or natural gas trapped in the ground on shore. “This is revolutionary technology …[that]… has the potential to change the way we produce natural gas…

Wärtsilä say they are to supply a 62 MW topside power module solution for a Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel to be deployed at the Kraken oilfield located in the U.K. sector of the North Sea. This EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) award comes from Armada Kraken Pte.Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Malaysia based international offshore oilfield services provider, Bumi Armada. Bumi Armada will be using a recently built Suezmax tanker for the FPSO conversion, which will have a storage capacity of 600,000 barrels.

The Snøhvit facilities at Melkøya have been shut down this autumn for planned upgrading and maintenance. Running-in after the completion of the turnaround began on 7 November. All replaced and upgraded parts of the cooling plant were started up and appeared to function. But two technical challenges have arisen during this phase. The first was a fault in one of the plant’s utility systems, which has now been repaired. Arising later in the running-in period, the second fault related to an electric motor which forms part of the cooling process. It has now been decided that this motor must be replaced by a reserve unit which is stored at the nearby Polarbase in Hammerfest.

Production on the Brage and Veslefrikk fields has been resumed after the small fire on the Oseberg A platform in the on June 15. The small fire occurred in a high voltage room on the Oseberg A platform which is part of the Oseberg field center. The high voltage room supplies electric power to the utility systems on the field center. Both the processing and the transport of oil and gas from the Oseberg field centre were stopped immediately. All safety and emergency response measures were implemented as intended  during the incident and all personnel on board were taken well care of.

TECHNIP-COFLEXIP has been awarded, by Saudi Arabian Oil Company SAUDI ARAMCO, for the expansion of the Berri gas plant to handle additional output of sour gas from the Qatif field, which is now under development. TECHNIP-COFLEXIP will provide a low-pressure gas sweetening unit, two new sulfur recovery units, a new feed gas compressor, the revamp and capacity increase of the existing propane refrigeration unit, the upgrade of the existing sulfur recovery units to meet higher recovery rates, the upgrade of the inlet and flare facilities, additional sulfur storage capacity and the expansion of the existing utility systems to serve the new facilities.

With interests in Nigeria, Venezuela and Brazil, Statoil wishes to play a greater role around the Atlantic margins in supplying LNG to the burgeoning USA market, while Aker Kværner and Linde foresee a promising future as suppliers of technical solutions and engineering studies. Annual growth of 5-10 per cent is expected for new LNG plant construction. This new Alliance is a natural successor to the successful Statoil - Linde LNG Technology Alliance, which has led to the development and qualification of the next generation of spiral-wound heat exchangers (SWHEs) and the Mixed Fluid Cascade liquefaction process (MFC). SWHEs have already been delivered to Shell for LNG projects located on the North West Shelf of Australia and in Brunei…

Höegh LNG announced that it has entered into agreements with major contractors and formally started the engineering and design for its first LNG FPSO Unit (Floating Production Storage and Offloading), with the objective to design and construct the worlds’ first LNG FPSO. “Our strategy is to develop Höegh LNG’s business model from pure LNG transportation into offering also solutions for LNG production and floating regasification terminals”, says Sveinung Støhle, President and CEO of Höegh LNG AS. The proposed project will consist of a ship shaped offshore classed structure with the capacity to treat and liquefy a well stream of approx 2.5 billion cubic meters pr. year, which will give an annual production of approx 1.6 million tons of LNG and approx 0.5 million tons of LPG.

Höegh LNG entered agreements with Aker Yards and ABB Lummus Global and started the engineering and design for its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit. The proposed project will consist of a ship-shaped FPSO with the capacity to treat and liquefy a well stream of approximately 88.2 Bcf/year, or annual production of approximately 1.6 million tons of LNG and approximately 500,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The LNG FPSO will have storage capacity of 6.4 MMcf of LNG and 1.1 MMcf of LPG. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in mid-2011. Höegh LNG will manage the pre-front end engineering and design (FEED) phase, with Aker Yards performing work on the FPSO hull, containment and utility systems.