V E N T U R E _ J A N U A R Y
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WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 29TH _ WINDY, SLIGHT OVERCAST, 24ºC. MEETING AT SIEMENS OFFICES AT MAUA-JURONG SHIPYARD, NITEROI.
SAFETY BRIEFING FROM KBR. ISSUED WITH HELMET, SAFETY GLASSES, OVERALLS, BOOTS. FIRST VISIT TO P43.
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 30TH _ LOW CLOUD, MIST, INTERMITTENT LIGHT RAIN, OCCASIONAL HEAVY SHOWERS, 18ºC. AT SHIPYARD CHANGE INTO
FULL SAFETY GEAR, CLIMB 20 METER ACCESS GANTRY WITH ALL PHOTOGRAPHIC EQUIPMENT TO MAIN DECK OF P43.
FRIDAY OCTOBER 1ST _ LOW CLOUD, MIST, INTERMITTENT LIGHT RAIN IN PM, 22ºC. MEETINGS WITH SIEMENS STAFF ON-SITE; INTERVIEWS
WITH SERGIO DELLA LIBERA, TURBOMACHINERY ENGINEER, PETROBRAS. AND ALAN OGUNMUYIWA, KBR MATERIALS & PROCUREMENT MANAGER.
“Six of the Best” from Siemens to Rio
Making it big in Brazil, a total of six gas compressor-trains, the largest, most powerful and
most complex of their kind, have been installed on two giant FPSO—Floating Production,
Storage and Offloading—vessels in Rio de Janeiro. Designed and built at Siemens’ Duisburg
plant and due shortly to enter service in Brazil’s newest offshore deepwater oilfields, the
compressor modules are a vital component of the huge and technically-challenging US$2.6
billion project for state-owned oil major Petrobras.
As traditional global reserves of oil and gas become increasingly exploited, the offshore industry has begun to move
more and more to the development of less accessible fields.
These include deepwater and even ultra-deepwater reservoirs
where water depths can be in excess of 1,500 meters. Where
mature technologies for drilling and production have hitherto
provided cost-effective and economically viable solutions, a
relatively select band of specialist companies is now at the
forefront of technological development. Innovative systems
are now being employed which allow a new generation of
equipment suppliers and oilfield operators to exploit recent
—and frequently far smaller—discoveries at greater subsea
depths, the ‘final frontier’ for offshore hydrocarbon exploration and development.
As interests first began to be focused on smaller and less
accessible reserves, only the largest and most experienced oil
majors, such as BP, Exxon, Shell and Petrobras had the innovative technical, managerial and financial resources to recover
oil and gas from deep and ultra-deepwater reservoirs. The
part-privatized company Petrobras is Brazil’s largest oil and
natural gas producer, ranking among the heavy-hitters capable of pioneering exploration and production technologies
allowing commercial operation in such challenging conditions
as those encountered in the newest fields on the Brazilian
continental shelf. These new technologies not only include
innovative systems for drilling and well completion, subsea
flowlines and risers, but also for complex floating structures
and anchoring systems.
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
Since the late 1990s, nearly 12 billion barrels of oil equivalent
have been brought into production from some 79 deepwater
fields by Petrobras and other major international companies
specializing in deepwater operations. The principal areas
of activity are located in offshore West Africa, the Niger Delta,
Asia Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Brazil.
FLOATING SOLUTION
Among the many spectacular engineering solutions developed by the industry, giant floating ‘ship-shaped’ vessels
have become the system of choice for the development of an
increasing number of smaller, deepwater oil and gas fields.
These Floating Production, Storage, and Offloading vessels
or FPSOs replace the fixed production platforms and pipeline
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V E N T U R E _ J A N U A R Y
systems which are used to produce and export oil and gas
from shallower fields and which are not technically or commercially viable for smaller, deepwater applications. FPSOs on
the other hand, either in the form of ship-conversions using
existing hulls, or increasingly as new-build vessels, can be
towed out and anchored at the location of the offshore reservoir to form a hub for the producing wells in the field. Oil
and gas is piped from the wells to the vessel through subsea
flowlines connected to the FPSO through flexible ‘risers’,
allowing the vessel to separate the gas, process the recovered
crude oil and act as a central storage facility. Oil is subsequently exported to overseas markets or domestic onshore
refineries by shuttle tankers, providing a highly flexible
system which can be moved to a new field when production
finally becomes uneconomic and which is able to meet the
needs of a changing market. The gas can either be re-injected
to enhance oil recovery or exported to local markets onshore.
OIL—BRAZIL’S BURNING ISSUE
Brazil is the tenth largest energy consumer in the world and
the third largest in the western
hemisphere, behind the United
States and Canada. The country’s
total energy consumption has
increased significantly in recent
years, growing at an annual rate of
3% between 1992 and 2002. As a
consequence, the Brazilian government has sought to boost domestic
oil production as part of its longterm energy strategy. Although production levels are increasing,
imported oil is still needed to meet
domestic demand, in spite of the fact
that the country has the second
largest oil reserves in South
America, with 8.5 billion barrels as of January 2004. Recent
discoveries reported by Petrobras, including an estimated
2.95 billion barrels of heavy oil, are also certain to increase
proved reserves over the next few years. Now, under the
presidency of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, elected in October
2002, the government has set a target for self-sufficiency in
oil production by 2006 and has its future sights set on joining
other oil exporting countries, with output eventually reaching
2.3 million barrels per day by 2010. The government’s plans
to become self-sufficient are being led by Petrobras, which
has demonstrated its commitment by issuing a revised strategic plan for 2004 – 2010, in which the company pledges to
spend US$7.7 billion per year, most of the funding aimed at
boosting domestic oil output.
Halliburton, the largest oilfield services company in the
world, constructed a total of 55 wells, fabricated and installed
flowlines and risers and undertook the construction and
installation of the two FPSOs, which form the hubs on which
the entire gas and oilfield development is based.
Two of Brazil’s offshore oil and gas fields, the Barracuda and
the Caratinga, due shortly to enter full production, are located
in the Campos Basin some 180 km northeast of Rio de Janeiro.
Discovered in 1989 and 1994 respectively and named after two
common species of South American fish, the two fields cover
a combined area of 230 square kilometers and will boost the
current pilot output of one million barrels per day by around
30%, providing around 20% of the country’s total production.
Recoverable reserves for Barracuda are estimated at 867 million barrels of oil and 10.7 billion cubic meters of gas, while
the more southerly Caratinga field has estimated reserves of
362 million barrels of oil and 4 billion cubic meters of natural
gas.
EPIC UNDERTAKING
To enable the Barracuda and Caratinga fields to achieve full
production, Petrobras entered into an agreement with USbased Halliburton Co’s KBR—formerly Kellogg Brown &
Root—and Halliburton Energy Services (HES) business units
to develop the two fields. Under the US$2.6 billion EPIC
(Engineering, Procurement, Installation and Construction)
contract, the largest ever awarded for an offshore project,
As well as receiving oil from the 22 producing wells, large
volumes of natural gas also flow from the subsea reservoirs.
Specialist process equipment based on three very large compressor-trains designed, engineered, supplied and installed by
Siemens, is employed on each FPSO to cool the gas, remove all
traces of seawater and oil and increase gas pressure. Around
80% of the compressed and dried gas is re-injected back into
the oilfield reservoirs as ‘gas-lift’ to push more gas and the
viscous, heavy crude oil—about API 21—out of the producing
wells. The remaining 20% is fed from the Siemens process
modules through gas export risers and an undersea pipeline
to a remote fixed platform, PNA-1, where it joins the main gas
transportation pipeline and is piped onshore to join the
Brazilian gas network.
FROM CRUDE CARRIER TO SOPHISTICATED SYSTEM
The Barracuda field will use the Petrobras P43, an ex-supertanker or ‘VLCC’ (Very Large Crude Carrier) formerly owned
by the Stena shipping line and originally named the Stena
Continent. Her sistership, the Petrobras P48, an almost identical vessel previously operating as the Stena Concordia, will
2 0 0 5 _ F O C U S _ 0 9
form a similar hub for the Caratinga field. Converted at the
Jurong shipyard in Singapore, the two enormous vessels,
minus all their original machinery including engines, rudders, steering gear and topsides, were reduced to a series of
huge oil storage tanks with a capacity of 2 million barrels
within a modern double-hull construction. In an epic 4-week
voyage, the gutted vessels were towed from Singapore 10,000
nautical miles to the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Work on the
P43 was carried out at the Maua Jurong yard at Niteroi, and
the P48 was constructed at the BrasFels yard at Angra dos
Reis. The mainly locally-recruited KBR workforce, together
with a large number of specialist sub-contractors and suppliers, totaling around 4,700 people, subsequently undertook
the massive construction and conversion program, fitting out the two vessels. Complex prefabricated modules
creating the on-board production facility on each vessel were lifted into
position and integrated with the hundreds of kilometers of piping, pressure-vessels, pumps, valves and the
mass of vital supporting structural
steelwork, ancillary systems and controls to form the completed topsides.
TOWERING ACHIEVEMENT
This massive, 18,000 tonne, multistory, deck-mounted construction is
in effect a large factory with its own
independent power plant providing a generating capacity of
nearly 90 megawatt (MW), enough for a small city, together
with accommodation and recreation facilities for 150 people.
And it towers at least as high again as the 22-meter height of
the deck from the waterline. The flare stack at the stern of
each FPSO soars 100 meters above the deck and in the far
distance, 337 meters away at the bow, a helideck provides a
view encompassing the 55-meter width across the deck. The
American Bureau of Shipping-certified double hulls of the
vessels themselves, each the size of an entire city block and
housing the cavernous oil storage tanks, plunge another 21
meters below water, but even before a drop of oil is pumped
aboard, these leviathans each tip the scales at more than
70,000 tonnes.
V E N T U R E _ J A N U A R Y
SIEMENS’ MAGNIFICENT ‘MINIS’
The US$60 million contract awarded in January 2001 to
Demag Delaval, immediately prior to its incorporation into
Siemens, for a total of six gas process modules was the highest value ever won by the company, exceeding previous typical
awards by a factor of six. In engineering terms the very large
custom-designed systems were by far the largest, highestpowered and most complex of their kind ever built by the
company. Powered by variable speed electric drives, the multistage turbo-compressor trains were fabricated and tested at
Siemens’ Duisburg plant in Germany, shipped to the Niteroi
shipyard in Rio and integrated with piping, coolers, gasscrubbers, associated equipment and control systems as skidmounted ‘mini-modules’. They were
lifted by one of the world’s biggest
floating cranes and mounted one on
top of another on bearing-pads
within a massive steel framework,
each the size of a large commercial
building, standing 25 meters high,
26 meters long and 9 meters wide
and weighing in at a massive 450
tonnes apiece. “It was rather exciting, seeing the finished product being swung out over the harbor and
into its final position on the deck.
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As project manager for the largest single engineering undertaking ever handled by Siemens’ Duisburg-based business
unit, Hans-Ulrich Keil has had an awesome responsibility for
the Barracuda/Caratinga project. This has included leading a
small team of engineering managers and senior staff, based
6,000 miles from their production center in Germany, who
Keeping the Faith—Delivering the Goods
One slip and 60 million dollars and more than three years
work could have ended up in the sea!” said project manager
Hans-Ulrich Keil. “I needn’t have worried,” he continued, “it
all went perfectly—first time—exactly as planned.”
TYING IT DOWN
Slated to be in full production by the end of 2004, the FPSOs
will be moored some 12.7 kilometers apart in the Barracuda
and Caratinga fields, each vessel using state-of-the-art DICAS
(Differentiated Compliance Anchoring System) taut leg spread
mooring technology developed by KBR's specialist mooring
team. Believed to be the strongest of its kind in the world, it
consists of no fewer than eighteen individual anchor-lines,
five lines radiating either side of the bow and two groups of
four at the stern, comprising 210 mm diameter polyester
ropes and chains up to 1,800 meters long with a total weight
of 1,200 tonnes. These are secured to computer-controlled
winches, which enable the vessels to remain on station, without undue strain on either the vessels or the anchor lines, no
matter what sea-states are encountered.
“WE WERE ABLE TO MANAGE THE PROJECT,
INCLUDING ALL LOCAL CONTENT, WITH
VIRTUALLY NO DELAYS AT ALL. ALTHOUGH IT
HAS BEEN BY FAR THE BIGGEST CONTRACT
WE HAVE EVER HANDLED, OUR WORKFORCE
ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC HAS BEEN
TOTALLY MOTIVATED, NOT LEAST THROUGH
THE EFFORTS OF OUR MANAGEMENT TEAM
HERE IN BRAZIL, ALLOWING US TO DELIVER
THE COMPLETE PACKAGE WITHIN THE
SHORTEST POSSIBLE PERIOD OF TIME AND
WITHIN BUDGET.”
have had to supervise a locally-recruited workforce of up to
600 people during construction of the ‘mini-modules’. First
visiting the Niteroi site in March 2001, Keil has so far made
more than 20 separate week-long trips, clocking-up a distance
in the air equivalent to the distance between the earth and
the moon! In addition to creating a specialist team of Siemens
engineering managers to oversee the project to completion,
there has also been the special need to form a close working
relationship with local Brazilian partners in order to complete
vital elements of the total system-build, such as the main steel
fabrication and integration of the coolers and scrubbers on
each gas process ‘mini-module’.
Yet despite the vast size, scope and complexity of this technically-groundbreaking project, Hans-Ulrich Keil and his team,
including Site Manager Michael Jungnitz, Carlos Schneider,
Compressors Director, Oil & Gas and Service Manager Stephan
Rosenast, have steered their part of the giant Petrobras
project to a highly successful conclusion for their customer,
Halliburton’s KBR division.
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V E N T U R E _ J A N U A R Y
Alan Ogunmuyiwa,
Senior Procurement
and Materials Manager
for Halliburton’s KBR
Sergio Della Libera,
Petrobras’ Turbomachinery Engineer
for the Barracuda
and Caratinga Project
“Dependable
solutions”
As the ‘ultimate’ customer and enduser, the requirements of Petrobras
are of course paramount. “We have
been working with Siemens for
very many years and have developed a high degree of trust,”
says Sergio Della Libera,
Petrobras’ Turbomachinery
Engineer for the Barracuda
and Caratinga Project. “For a
critical project like this, it is
vital that the equipment has
the highest possible levels of
both reliability and availability. It
is simply not possible to shut the
operation down for unscheduled
maintenance.” “Equipment and systems supplied by Siemens over many
years, including plant in operation on many
of our older offshore platforms, has given
excellent performance and is still performing
well, so we have every confidence that the
latest process units will be a complete success.” Which has to be a fairly resounding
vote of confidence, in anyone’s terms.
“Perfect
interfacing”
Despite their size, the compressor trains and equipment have not sprung any unpleasant surprises
during extensive shore-based functional testing of
the complex plant and systems, or its installation
on board the FPSOs. Alan Ogunmuyiwa, Senior
Procurement and Materials Manager for Siemens’
customer, Halliburton’s KBR is not slow to comment
that “We have had absolutely no internal problems
‘interfacing’ with the company. Back at the start
of the project Demag Delaval already had a great
reputation and we have of course had dealings with
Siemens for more than 25 years.” He continued:
“We regard their products as having really good
quality. Our only ‘complaint’ is that when it comes to
the nitty-gritty of negotiations, they are among the
toughest people that we have to deal with, although
after all, that’s exactly how it should be!” “I also have
to say that, yes, we’ve had some significant problems
with both quality and delivery, particularly from
some locally-based suppliers, but Siemens have been
one of the very few companies who have delivered
compressors on time and to our full specifications.”
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V E N T U R E _ J A N U A R Y
respond to Essent’s changing needs for steam and, more particularly, power. Finally, it must have low atmospheric emissions. An industrial plant from Siemens was the solution.
The ESSENTials of CHP
With energy prices rising, there is growing interest in fuel-efficient
solutions like CHP. But what’s in it for the customer?
A field in the middle of a petrochemical facility near Antwerp,
Belgium, is the footprint for one of Siemens’ latest power
projects, involving the construction of a combined heat and
power (CHP) plant powered by two SGT-800 gas turbines.
Project customer is the Dutch-based utility, Essent, market
leader in the supply of sustainable energy in the Netherlands.
“For environmental and business reasons, it is company
policy to utilize high-efficiency energy technologies wherever
possible,” says Mr. Aad Atteveld, General Manager, Projects,
at Essent Energie. CHP, which currently accounts for around
a quarter of Essent’s electrical generating capacity, was the
obvious choice for this plant also.
SELECTING THE SITE
Co-generation of heat and power achieves a number of economic and ecological goals. Since heat, unlike power, cannot
be transported economically over long distances, an essential
factor for Essent developing a CHP project was to find a local,
long-term customer for the heat. This heat customer would be
INEOS Oxide, a subsidiary of INEOS, a global manufacturer of
specialty and intermediate chemicals. Located in the world’s
second largest petrochemical zone, on the left bank of the
River Scheldt, just across the river from Antwerp’s historic city
center, the INEOS Oxide plant is claimed to be the largest and
most cost-efficient ethylene oxide plant in Europe. The site
also hosts eight third-party chemical manufacturers, around
half of which are supplied with steam by INEOS.
FOUR ESSENTIAL FACTORS
When selecting their CHP plant, Essent based their decision
on four essential success factors. Firstly, the plant’s life-cycle
costs (capital cost, fuel cost and maintenance cost) must be
low to ensure the economic viability of the project. Secondly,
since the CHP plant was to supply all the heat required by
INEOS, a high level of plant availability was critical. Thirdly,
the plant must be sufficiently operationally flexible to
COMBINED CYCLE GIVES RELIABILITY
The chosen plant is powered by two natural-gas fired 43.6
megawatt (MW) SGT-800 gas turbines, the largest model in
the Siemens industrial gas turbine range. Exhaust heat from
the gas turbines will be fed into heat recovery steam generators to produce steam to satisfy INEOS’ requirement, the surplus passing through a steam turbine to generate additional
power, if required. This combined cycle arrangement gives
the benefit of additional plant flexibility and a higher powerto-heat ratio.
The solution is ingenious. The SGT-800 has been
optimized for CHP and combined-cycle duty and
can be started up in only a few minutes. It is designed for high reliability, with a focus on simplicity and robustness. Choosing two mid-range
gas turbines instead of one larger turbine automatically heightens availability, since it reduces
the likelihood of the whole plant being rendered
unavailable. To secure steam availability, Essent has
also taken over two of INEOS’ existing boilers at the site for
emergency back-up.
MINIMIZING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Two heat recovery steam generators (HRSG’s) retrieve heat
from the exhaust gases to produce steam for the single-casing
axial SST-400 50 MW steam turbine, also of Siemens manufacture. The main heat input comes from the gas turbine
exhaust, but each HRSG is also equipped with a 40 MW supplementary firing system to increase steam production and
plant flexibility. The fuel burned will be a mixture of natural
gas and waste gases from the petrochemical site, thus
enabling INEOS to minimize its environmental impact. For
combustion air, exhaust gas from the gas turbine will be used.
Since the exhaust gas is very hot, combustion efficiency is
improved and the risk of material stresses in the HRSG is
reduced. The SGT-800 gas turbine in itself is equipped with a
3rd generation DLE (Dry Low Emissions) combustion system,
which, by eliminating the need for water injection, reduces
emissions without reducing efficiency.
MAXIMIZING FLEXIBILITY
When the CHP plant is taken into service, Essent will supply
steam to INEOS, along with demineralized water. All the
power will be sold by Essent into the grid. The maximum net
electrical output will be 132 MW, at least twice the level of
demand expected from the petrochemical site. “The possibility
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of making power sales into the Belgian grid was a major factor
in our decision to develop this project,” says Mr. Atteveld. The
possibility of exporting power to the grid opens up another
income stream for the plant operator, and strengthens the
economics of the project. It also means that the electrical output of the CHP plant need not be restricted to local site needs.
With its two gas turbines, steam turbine with full condensing or steam extraction capability and supplementary firing
of the HRSG’s, plus a rapid start-up/shutdown capability,
the Essent CHP plant has maximum operational flexibility.
Steam and power output will be controlled separately.
Steam output will be set locally according to site demand.
Power output will be determined from Essent’s offices in
’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, enabling Essent to adjust
the electrical output as prices change on the Belgian power
market.
This flexible plant will be able to run at near full electrical
output with very little process steam production i.e., as a
combined-cycle power plant, should this operation mode be
required.
EMPHASIZING SAFETY
Since the plant is being built in the middle of a petrochemical
site, the construction project has to be carried out to the most
rigorous standards of safety.
“The high level of integration of the CHP plant with the
chemical production process, as well as the location of the
power plant in the center of an established petrochemical site,
mean that there are a number of stringent requirements to be
met with regard to safety in this construction project,” says
Mr. Atteveld. The large number of production facilities on site
also has an impact on project management, since it is imperative, that certain works be carried out at particular times to
prevent unplanned shutdowns of the manufacturing processes on site.
WIN-WIN
The engineers are not letting the grass grow under their feet.
Civil works began on site in August 2004, and the completed
plant is scheduled for handover at the end of 2005.
Essent will then be the proud owner of a highly efficient
CHP plant capable of meeting its requirements for low-cost
energy production, high availability, operational flexibility
and low emissions and have a long-term customer for the
plant’s heat output. INEOS in turn will have a reliable, on-site
source of heat and power without major capital investment,
as well as a productive outlet for some of its waste gases.
It’s a win-win situation from the word go. What more
could Siemens want for its customers and its customers’
customers?