Venture
into the world of industrial turbomachinery and oil and gas solutions
Issue 14 | November 2010
Focus
Biomass — burning wood,
burning ambition
Monitor
Real time solutions — XHQ users
convene in Singapore
Spotlight
Going subsea in Trondheim
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Dear Readers,
Oil & Gas Consulting is an underlying motivator and facilitator to many of our clients’
activities and projects. Over the past decade, Siemens has systematically increased
its expertise in areas that simplify the immensely complex projects many of our
customers have to hold together. As an example, a users’ conference in Singapore was
instrumental in promoting the XHQ real-time facility visualization and analysis
platform and associated tools. Many of the Oil & Gas majors were there to present real
projects, challenges and solutions, some of which are recreated in brief for Venture.
All of our business is underpinned by thorough research and analysis: the challenges
of the subsea world are no exception, as Venture discovered when visiting the Subsea
Research Center in Trondheim, Norway.
We do not forget our staple business, power generation. This issue features Sweden’s
biggest CHP biomass plant, Igelsta, powered by a Siemens steam turbine, and a mammoth plant extension project successfully delivered in Mymensingh, Bangladesh.
Enjoy reading!
Tom Blades, CEO
Siemens Energy Sector, Oil & Gas Division
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Inside
Inside
06
18
Cover photo: Sweden’s largest biomass plant at Södertälje,
west of Stockholm
12
04 News flash Around the world
Projects in North America and Egypt, and a strategic initiative for
better refrigeration plants.
06 Focus Burning wood, burning ambition
A visit to Sweden’s latest and largest biomass power plant
12 Monitor What you see is what you get
Impressions from the 2010 XHQ User Conference in Singapore
18 Spotlight Unexpected friendship
Siemens aggregates its subsea competence at the new Subsea
Competence Center in Trondheim, Norway.
22 Insight Against all odds
A glimpse at the not-so-easy project of bringing electric power
to Mymensingh in Bangladesh
IMPRINT
Publisher: Siemens AG, Energy Sector, Oil & Gas, Wolfgang-Reuter-Platz, 47053 Duisburg, Germany Responsible: Dr. Uwe Schütz Editorial team: Lynne Anderson (Head),
Manfred Wegner Contact: lynne.anderson@siemens.com Contributing editors: Elise Chaplin, Edgar Hendrassen, Andreas Kleinschmidt Design: Formwechsel Designbüro,
Düsseldorf Photography: Florian Sander, Jochen Balke Lithography: TiMe GmbH, Mülheim Printing: Köller+Nowak GmbH, Düsseldorf.
© 2010 Siemens AG. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical photocopying, or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
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Vista
A R O u N D T H E W A l l S — Singapore night light.
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News flash
Around the world
1
Siemens pumping crude oil for TransCanadaʼs
Keystone expansion
The first phase of TransCanadaʼs Keystone Gulf Coast Expansion
Project began delivering crude oil to the U.S. Midwest in June 2010.
When completed, the pipeline will transport crude oil from Alberta,
Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast and it will be powered by integrated
pumping systems from Siemens Energy.
Siemensʼ scope of supply covers pumps and electrical equipment for
38 pumping stations, including 104 pumps and motors as well as
variable-frequency drives, E-houses with medium- and low-voltage
switchgear and unit-control systems for each station. In addition,
Siemens will be responsible for system integration of the components
and will also supply four high-voltage substations. Says Mr. Jones,
chief engineer for the project: “We needed a supplier with the capability to get all this equipment to us on time and on budget. And I must
say that Siemens did a very good job.”
This expansion is the first pipeline to directly connect a growing
and reliable supply of Canadian crude oil to the largest refining
market in North America. At 2,673 km, it is also the longest in the
world!
2
Worldʼs first hybrid combined-cycle plant to be
commissioned with Siemens steam turbine
Kuraymat in Egypt is the first plant in the world to be commissioned
using both gas-combi and solar power in a Hybrid Combined-Cycle
(HCC) scheme. Operation is scheduled to begin in October 2010,
following a 30-month construction period, 2 months of integration
with the solar field and one month of reliability tests. The plant will
operate at night in conventional natural-gas combined-cycle mode,
and the solar power contribution will be added during the day. Of
the total capacity of 150 megawatt electrical (MWe), 110 MWe will be
generated by the combined-cycle plant and 40 MWe by the solar
plant. Siemens is supplying the 80 MWe SST-900 steam turbine to
the combined cycle.
The site is located in Kuraymat, 95 km south of El Cairo and 2.5 km
east of the river Nile, in a flat area, practically uninhabited, in the
middle of the desert, with a sun exposure that reaches 2400 kilowatthours per square meter and year, in the middle of a strategic area
for electric power generation and distribution, with gas pipelines, grid
infrastructure (550 kilovolt (kV), 220 kV and 66 kV) and very close
to the river Nile.
3 Siemens and GEA Technofrigo join forces
Siemens AG and GEA Technofrigo SpA, Italy, have entered into a
cooperation agreement for the study and realization of refrigeration
plants used in oil and gas processing, and the chemical and petrochemical sectors.
Having operated individually in the oil and gas industry for many
years, the two companies are now combining their expertise to offer
large-capacity refrigeration plants and the centrifugal compressors
that work in them. Under the cooperation agreement, Technofrigo will
integrate Siemens compressors into their turnkey offer for highly
optimized refrigeration cycles.
The cooperation gives customers worldwide the advantage of a
single-point partner for a complete refrigeration system, with the
additional benefits of a more efficient and economic solution resulting
from the joint experience of the two companies.
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Focus
Burning wood,
burning ambition
Sweden is the European country with the highest proportion of renewables in its
energy mix. This success is the result of market-based economic incentives, the
availability of renewable energy sources in the country itself, and the ecological
mindset of the Swedish people. The use of innovative technologies also plays an
important role: the energy yield from renewables like wood and peat is maximized
by modern turbine technology.
Sometimes the “right thing to do” is obvious,
yet difficult to actually achieve. Increasing the
use of renewables for energy production is one
such thing. It helps to reduce CO2 emissions
and preserve precious reserves of fossil fuels
for future generations — a noble, if not necessary objective. But markets alone are sometimes inadequate to bring about such changes.
For example, firing the coal and gas that is
readily available, at current market prices, continues to be an attractive economic option in
many cases. For this reason, the Swedish government stepped in to speed up the transition
towards green energy by means of ‘tough love’,
using both carrots and sticks. A mix of economic incentives and penalties made new fossilfuel plants unprofitable. As a result, utilities
stopped building them, investing heavily instead in plants that use renewables or waste.
In March 2010, Sweden’s largest biomass plant,
Igelsta, was inaugurated at Södertälje, west of
Stockholm. Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf officiated at the ceremony and professed himself
very proud of the new plant. During the first
year of operation alone its savings in CO2 emissions, compared to conventional fossil-fueled
plants, will equal the annual CO2 emissions of
approximately 140,000 cars. Being a committed
environmentalist himself (as well as a lover of
fast cars), King Carl XVI Gustaf said, “The time
has never been more appropriate for this type
of investment. The fire lit here will be a beacon
for Sweden, for Europe, for the world.”
And indeed, Sweden has become an impressive
model for the successful diversification of
energy production. In 2008 more than half the
energy for heating and hot water used bioenergy as its source. But the burning ambition
of Swedes to go green is even greater: by 2020
fossil fuels are to be phased out of energy production altogether.
A voracious plant requires a varied diet!
Building up green credentials for the Scandinavian country required using available natural
resources while also instituting policies to
incentivize their efficient use. But, to a certain
extent, the country was also simply lucky: its
lavish water resources, combined with its geographical profile, make hydro power a major
natural source of energy, covering almost half
the country’s electricity needs. The rest is
provided by nuclear power plants, a small
amount of fossil power generation, and a growing proportion of renewables like wind, biomass and even solar power. Around four percent
of electricity is produced at combined heat
and power plants (CHP) which feed the heat produced into a district heating network. The
share of such plants in the overall energy mix
is growing, as they are a particularly efficient
way of providing both electricity and heat for a
country where temperatures are relatively
chilly much of the year. like the Igelsta plant,
more and more facilities use a mix of biofuels
and waste in varied proportions reflecting
availability and cost.
At Igelsta this mix consists of around 25 percent
waste paper, wood and plastic collected from
offices, shops and industries, which cannot be
recycled together with 75 percent biofuels, in
particular forest refuse, wood chips, tree bark,
and in the future possibly energy crops such as
willow. Much of the waste will be shipped in
from Holland: other fuels come from all over
Scandinavia and the Baltic states. An independent fuel-search company works to locate suitable resources for a syndicate of plants in the
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Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf (right) officiated at the inauguration ceremony, where the origin of the plant as a furnace in
the stone age and dwelling place in the iron age was celebrated in song and dance by a local troupe of performers.
area: fallen timber, for example, was culled
from France after a major hurricane wrecked
forest land. Biomass heating is not a system
of choice for the French, so their waste was profitably converted to Swedish fuel.
While the technology of the power block is tested and straightforward — a Siemens SST-800
steam turbine is at its core — the one big challenge for operation of a biofuel plant is logistics. “Our plant is constantly hungry,” jokes Mats
Strömberg, project manager for the construction of Söderenergi’s plant. In order to secure
constant deliveries of “food” — biofuels and
waste — the plant is built beside a waterway,
where a terminal has been erected. This is also
the source of cooling water for the plant.
Fuels also arrive via train and road, three diverse channels to ease the logistics. The plant
was put to the test during its first season since
the recent wolf winter blocked access routes
with ice and snow. The onsite storage for around
30,000 cubic meters of fuel would only last for
two days in the event of a complete disruption
in the supply chain, so more fuel is stored in
neighboring municipalities to keep the boiler
fed, and the local people warm and happy.
“Despite these challenges, we have a lot of experience in operating these plants in Sweden.
Many municipalities have already built biomass CHP plants and others are thinking about
doing so. I personally have experience from a
similar, but smaller, plant in the city of Gävle,”
says Strömberg. For that project, he also chose
a Siemens turbine. “Siemens simply made
the best offer on both occasions. Price, performance and technology were right. Among
these variables, by the way, performance is the
most important, because the plant will go
on producing for up to 40 years. And savings
through efficiency will add up over time.”
A real beauty
The counter-pressure SST-800 steam turbine,
delivered in 2009, boasts the biggest heating
condensers ever installed by the Siemens industrial turbine plant in Görlitz, Germany. And
the biggest single casing made in one piece.
The turboset has an energy output of 90 MW,
while hot live steam with a temperature of
540 degrees Celsius and a pressure of 90 bar
flows into the turbine. It is a so-called tandem
compound turbine with the advantage of consistently splitting heat capacity between the two
preheaters even if the turboset runs at part load.
The red casing of the Igelsta turbine is an eyecatcher. In fact, the plant is a real beauty, with
an imposing location, on clear view from the
motorway and the railway to the capital. The
architects hired by Söderenergi worked together
with local architects to come up with a legolike structure. The huge window of the machine
hall provides views of the machinery from outside and offers a breathtaking vista over the
waterway and nearby forests. New ships arriving with fuel deliveries can easily be spotted
from there!
A comprehensive certificate trading system
was started in 2003, strongly favoring the use
of renewables for energy production and
penalizing the use of fossil fuels. “This certificate scheme is just one pillar of Swedish regulation with regards to green energy,” explains
Jan-Erik Haglund, environmental manager
at Söderenergi. “A carbon tax and the pan-European emissions trading system are the other
two.” A carbon tax of 100 uSD per tonne was
introduced in 1991 and has been rising since.
Currently it adds up to 50 percent of the production cost of one unit of energy, when using
fossil fuels. The Eu-wide emissions trading
scheme was applied by Sweden in a rather
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“Siemens made
the best offer.
Price, performance and technology were right.
And savings
through efficiency
will add up
over time. ”
Mats Strömberg, project manager, Söderenergi
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Focus
“The state stepped in and removed an
assumed market dysfunction, the
relative underpricing of fossil fuels.
Without this system, Igelsta would
most likely have been designed to
burn gas rather than wood waste.”
Jan-Erik Haglund, environmental manager, Söderenergi
restrictive manner: no emission rights were
handed out to producers of heat in the beginning. This put additional pressure on utilities
to seek out alternative, low-carbon means of
producing energy.
The certificate trading scheme, however, is a
purely national endeavor and — as the name
indicates — it is market-based. Demand for certificates is created by the fact that all electricity
suppliers, as well as certain electricity users,
are required to purchase certificates in line
with their electricity needs. The quantity of certificates is adjusted every year, increasing the
demand for certificates and thus affecting
prices. This, in turn, increases the incentive to
produce more electricity from energy sources
approved for production of certificate-entitled
electricity.
New certificates only come into existence
through production of energy from renewables.
One electricity certificate is issued to each producer who, in an approved plant, produces and
meters one megawatt-hour of electricity from
renewable energy sources. The “green” produc-
er can then sell on his certificate and generate
additional revenue. Many different types of resources count as renewables under the scheme:
wind, solar, wave energy, geothermal energy,
biofuels like those used at Igelsta, peat when
burnt in CHP plants, and certain types of hydro
plants, excluding most of the large-scale capacity already installed.
Market power determines resources
By acknowledging competition between renewable energy sources, the system makes use of
the invisible hand, the power of the market to
come up with the most efficient use of resources. What makes the Swedish certificate system
interesting from an economic point of view is
that the virtuous capabilities of a free market
could only play out once the state stepped in
and removed an assumed market dysfunction,
the relative underpricing of fossil fuels. The results speak for themselves: Without the scheme
Igelsta would most likely have been designed
to burn gas rather than wood waste.
becoming once again a forerunner in the field
of renewables. Technology is much more advanced today and the economics have been
optimized, but the country is still keeping itself
warm as it did over 5,000 years ago. It was on
the very site of the Igelsta plant, during the
construction phase, that an old furnace from
the Stone Age was discovered, and a later settlement from the Iron Age. Husbanding fire for
cooking and warmth is a very powerful tradition!
Burning wood can simply be a very sound element in a comprehensive strategy for a greener
energy production. But the fact that Swedes
have a strong bond with the nature surrounding help to render its use sustainable.
TEXT
But, taking the long term perspective, Sweden
appears to be carrying on an age-old tradition,
Andreas Kleinschmidt P H O T O S
Florian Sander
F u R T H E R R E l AT E D I N F O R M AT I O N
www.siemens.com/energy/venture/
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Monitor
What you see is what you get
Equipped with pen and paper, camera and sweaters against the chill of the
air-conditioning, Venture arrived at the Singapore Grand Hyatt for the
2010 XHQ user conference. XHQ is an operations intelligence software still
considered a niche product by many, but to the initiated it has formidable
benefits and potential.
According to Partha Ray, host of the conference and local
manager of Siemens Oil & Gas Consulting, to date XHQ has
been sold to some 40 customers worldwide, mostly companies in the hydrocarbon business. Forty customers may
not sound like big game, but they are big global names.
Partha continues: “XHQ is currently monitoring operations
at about 300+ sites, with some 50,000 people looking at
its dashboards every day.” Put into global perspective, that
means an estimated 20 percent of worldwide refining capacity is currently monitored with the help of XHQ, and about
25 percent of the uS domestic refining capacity.
Sharing, caring community
The three-day conference was packed with real-world cases
documenting what XHQ is currently doing. The depth and
breadth of scope varies tremendously, depending on the
organization using XHQ, and their business priorities. A
handful of key findings pop up in almost all cases: energy
savings, time savings, reduced operating costs, added visibility, process optimization, improvement of communication.
Often, the findings are substantiated with real operations
data discussed with all frankness. “Itʼs like an oil-menʼs club,
with everybody sharing information, discussing ideas and
learning from each other,” says Partha. “Nobody is hiding
data: they all want to share their achievement.” letʼs have a
closer look at some select cases.
CALTEX AUSTRALIA — “More eyes looking at a
problem”
Venture picked the brain of Dr. Mark Hodgkinson, Operational
Excellence & Risk Manager with Caltex Australia, who use
XHQ for business analytics and process safety. So far, Caltex
Australia uses XHQ at two refineries. XHQ is used extensively in both. It has become a way of life. The Caltex business
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Monitor
case was always “more eyes looking at the problem”, on the
assumption that an incident would be better managed,
or even prevented, if information were shared among more
people in a timely manner.
two major effects of this ‘real-time’ visibility. First, the systematic capture of the expertise of our workforce, many
of whom will retire soon. Second, the complete but silent
change of the work process and business process.”
Optimization, then. It is commonplace throughout Caltex
refineries to start the day with XHQ and the morning production meeting is run with the real-time XHQ view projected
on the meeting room screen. This encourages observation
and dialog which integrate the business better and help
achieve targets.
letʼs expand a bit on that. Idemitsu looks upon each view
(XHQ screen) as the mind-map of an expert. Hence, when a
new employee looks at a specific view, he or she is looking
through the eyes of that expert. The ‘mental images’ are live
in front of their eyes, driven by live data.
Saving time, saving money
In many refineries including Caltex’, among the most
extensive users are console operators, who get lab reports
through XHQ. The moment operators get their data,
they can make comments (e-logs within XHQ) on any deltas
within XHQ. These may then go into the shift log, which may
further go into the daily log. Thus XHQ simplifies reporting
and eliminates errors by automating most of the data entry.
For these operators XHQ has become the main interface.
Caltex Australia did not want to restrict data to engineers or
managers. On any one day, the lytton refinery has some
200 to 250 hits. “Business blogging” is bigtime, and everyone
is deeply involved in the business.
No questions asked, none needed
An analysis from an independent consultant showed major
cost cuts and profit improvements for Caltex Australia,
directly attributable to the implementation of XHQ. Mark:
“You could achieve the same cost cuts and profit improvements by spending hours retrieving and analyzing the raw
data — but with XHQ you can do it in the tenth of the time!
No manager has ever asked for a justification of the investment,” he adds. “So, XHQ probably saved us a lot of money!”
IDEMITSU KOSAN — Looking through the eyes of
an expert
With a staff of 8,000, Idemitsu Kosan operates four refineries
and two petrochemical plants, achieving a revenue of
38 billion uSD (2008). Idemitsu first implemented XHQ in
2006 at their Hokkaido refinery: now XHQ is implemented
at six production sites and the headquarters.
Yoshio Ohashi, General Manager of the Group IT Center,
summarizing Idemitsuʼs experience with XHQ: “There are
Prior to XHQ, turning data into meaningful information
through manual reports could take weeks, and confidence
in that data was always in question. With XHQ, the time
dedicated to meetings and reporting substantially decreased.
Now everyone shares information all the time.
Time savings are estimated to be, amazingly, 8,800 hours
per year. Yoshio Ohashi: “We estimate that per site, on
average, XHQ is responsible for a profit differential of uSD
10.5 Million. Over six manufacturing sites that adds up
to uSD 63 million.”
Kaizen: constant improvement
These time savings have given people more time to concentrate on their core activities, or to consider process improvements. This is in line with an important facet of Japanese
corporate culture — Kaizen, or constant improvement. Processes at Idemitsu started self-optimizing, with no formal
business transformation or process re-engineering project
needed as a catalyst.
Kazutoshi Shimmura, Executive Officer & General Manager
with Idemitsu Kosanʼs Aichi Refinery, explains: “XHQ meant
first and foremost a change in the quality of work. People
have more time to think, to decide and to act by themselves.
Motivation for Kaizen has improved also, because XHQ
makes it easy to compare operations data between Idemitsu
refineries. Before XHQ there was simply nothing to compare”.
XHQ enables employees to see clearly which refinery is the
top-performing one. Kazutoshi Shimmura continues: “And
that may encourage people to think about their own refinery
and how to improve operations. There is no pressure from
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Nightime Singapore impressions after heavy daytime conferencing
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Monitor
“XHQ helps our employees
to think, decide and act
by themselves.
It’s a perfect fit to our company’s philosophy.”
Kazutoshi Shimmura, General Manager Aichi Refinery, Idemitsu Kosan
“Incidents can be better
managed, or even prevented, if information is shared
among more people.”
Dr. Mark Hodgkinson, Operational Excellence & Risk Manager, Caltex Australia
the top down. Essentially XHQ enables a strong bottom-up
activity. And this is a very important point for Idemitsu.”
And indeed, the usage of XHQ is very high: virtually every
refinery employee from all levels and functions uses XHQ
for their day to day work.
Mr. Daiju Murakami, Chief associate of Idemitsu’s ProcessSystem-Centre and the main architect of the solution explained how the Idemitsu Headquarters and the central
functions use the consolidated business overview to make
the corporation much leaner (e.g. optimize inventory)
and more agile (e.g. switch product mix based on market
price, inventory status and process limits).
SAUDI ARAMCO — Enterprise-monitoring solution
of a different scale
Saudi Aramco is a company of superlatives in many respects.
Delivering about 10 percent of the global oil consumption,
it is the world’s biggest national oil company. Its portfolio
encompasses a quarter of the world’s oil reserves and a tenth
of its gas reserves, distributed over a total of 88 fields, including Khurais, with 2 million BPD, the world’s largest production facility. Add to that 61 gas/oil separation plants,
five domestic refineries, seven upstream and downstream gas
plants, 20 bulk plants, 13 air fueling plants and a complex
network 24,000 kilometers of pipelines. From upstream
through midstream to downstream, Saudi Aramco’s operations are monitored using XHQ.
Respect for human beings
Ever since its foundation through Sazou Idemitsu in 1911,
the company has worked hard under the fundamental
principle of social contribution through business, always
maintaining respect for human beings in carrying out
business operations. “In a sense, XHQ is a perfect fit to our
company’s philosophy, to our work values. It is a means of
enforcing our corporate culture, as it promotes people to
become autonomous”, says Kazutoshi Shimmura. He then
goes on to say: “Accountability is greatly improved with
XHQ. Without a system correlating, aggregating and presenting data, it is hard to explain our operating status to
society, to our shareholders.” This is perhaps the ultimate
accolade of the XHQ system.
Before investing in XHQ, Saudi Aramco conducted three pilot projects as proof of concept. In parallel, the company
visited Chevron to gain first-hand experience of XHQ in operation. Then, from 2004 to 2006, XHQ was deployed at 32
facilities throughout Saudi Aramco’s operations, the project
being completed six months ahead of schedule. Since then
XHQ has been implemented at some 70 further facilities, including shipping terminals in Saudi Arabia and in uS Gulf,
gas plants, bulk plants as well as the “Intelligent Field” concept for oil and gas fields.
Says Saleh Nabzah, Group leader with Saudi Aramco: “XHQ
has become an essential application at Saudi Aramco, partic-
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Monitor
“XHQ makes our plants
safer. It alerts people
before a potential
hazard develops.”
Saleh Nabzah, Group Leader, Saudi Aramco
“XHQ opens up areas of lostprofit opportunity, as information is now openly available to
all through the XHQ platform.”
P N Selva Guru, Principal Control Engineer, Singapore Refining Company
ularly for the management. They get all the key performance
indicators directly and can easily make informed decisions
and analysis.”
Benefiting from typical XHQ effects such as reduced energy
consumption and maintenance downtime, the company is
now expanding their Enterprise Monitoring Solution, as the
XHQ implementation is called at Saudi Aramco, still further.
They recently implemented the ground breaking concept
of Generic i-Fields, reducing field implementation time from
months to a few hours, and Executive management dashboards with roll-up information coming for seven different
gas plants.
The partnership of Saudi Aramco and Siemens continuously
evolves with XHQ becoming an integral part of Saudi Aramco’s plant operations. Says Ahsan Yousufzai, Manager Oil &
Gas Consulting Services: “The ease of maintenance and
management of the XHQ tool allow Saudi Aramco to independently support and expand the existing implementation
and also carry out new implementations with their own
resources.” Saudi Aramco is truly a pioneer in adopting XHQ
in all business verticals of the hydrocarbon industry.
tegration of sub-surface data, which is being used extensively in Saudi Aramco’s Generic i-Field project.
Recently, XHQ teamed up with OpenSpirit to support the
Microsoft® Oil & Gas Reference Architecture, enabling XHQ
users to access data from all geoscience applications and
data stores compatible with OpenSpirit and thereby integrate the entire intelligent oil field in one presentation layer. “By using the OpenSpirit interoperability layer to bring
in the complex view of the subsurface from multiple applications, customers will see a more robust picture than ever
before,” said Jesse DeMesa, Director of XHQ Operations Intelligence at Siemens.
Partha Ray’s final word on the 2010 XHQ user Conference:
“All this is very rewarding: the commitment of the attendees,
the quality of the presentations, the open discussion of best
practices. XHQ may play a minor role in the vast Siemens
portfolio, but think of it as the cherry on the cake. The cake
is undeniably enhanced by the cherry, is it not?”
The road ahead
XHQ differentiates itself from its peers by its proven performance in heterogeneous IT environment. It is also evolving
very fast to extend its capability and reach, including the in-
TEXT
Edgar Hendrassen P H O T O S
Jochen Balke
F u R T H E R R E l AT E D I N F O R M AT I O N
www.siemens.com/energy/venture
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Spotlight
Unexpected
friendship
The days of oil are not yet over. However, the days of ”easy oil” appear to be numbered. Extracting
more from existing wells, in particular offshore, is therefore becoming increasingly important — and
more economically viable. To make this happen, more extraction equipment needs to be installed
subsea. Siemens’ grid solutions are helping to make this possible, as Venture learned when visiting the
Trondheim/Norway-based Siemens Power Electronic Center, a part of Siemens oil and gas business
focussing on subsea applications.
It is hard to imagine two places with less in
common than Norway and Brazil. One is cold,
the other hot. In one, guests are calmly welcomed in front of a fireplace, in the other kisses fly through the air like the Samba rhythms
that spice up daily life. However, take a closer
look and similarities emerge. And they go beyond the enthusiasm for barbecues shared by
both.
Both countries could qualify as “green” when
it comes to their electricity production, since
they draw heavily on hydro power. And both are
endowed with vast offshore oil reserves —
which long ago made Norway a net oil exporter,
and will make Brazil a net exporter in the near
future.
However, the gift of offshore oil poses a common challenge to both countries: how to make
most of these reserves in an economically and
ecologically sound way. using conventional
methods, only about a quarter of any given offshore oil deposit can be extracted. Once a deposit is tapped, its own pressure pushes the oil
up the pipes. When roughly 20 percent of the
oil is extracted, the pressure falls dramatically
and extraction becomes less and less effective.
Often as much as three quarters of the valuable
resource remain in the deposit, which is then
sealed with cement and abandoned.
200 percent increase in extraction rates
This type of conventional extraction is similar
to collecting soda by shaking a can, then opening it and gathering only what spills out, leaving behind everything that remains in the can.
Clearly this is ineffective and wasteful; a much
better technique would be to insert a straw and
suck out the contents. Indeed, this is what most
soda drinkers do. And oil companies are now
starting to use similar techniques with offshore
oil reserves.
By retrofitting existing wells with new equipment, up to three quarters of the oil in a given
deposit could be extracted. This represents a
200 percent increase in extraction rates. The
methods to achieve this are similar to those
used in onshore extraction: injecting water into
the well to increase pressure and installing
pumps to help to get more of the oil. Putting
this type of equipment to work far out at sea is,
however, a significant challenge — particularly
when it comes to deep sea extraction. Powering
this equipment is demanding, too.
In order to consume the minimum amount of
energy, compressors, pumps and electrical
equipment (to power these devices) must be
located as close to the actual well as possible.
The reason is simple: pumping oil up from the
reservoir and then over an additional distance
of up to three kilometers from seabed to sea
level requires a huge amount of energy. It is
much more economical to do it in two steps,
pumping it first to the seabed level and then
further up. Thus, placing more pumps and
other equipment on the seabed is going to become standard in the years to come.
“We cannot afford to leave offshore oil
untapped.”
Jan-Erik lystad, head of the Siemens Power Electronic Center in Trondheim, Norway, says, “We
cannot afford to leave most of the offshore oil
untapped. Therefore subsea extraction will be
more and more important in the future. And not
only in deep sea.” The environmental benefit is
that, instead of tapping new reservoirs, existing
ones can be exploited longer. At present, roughly
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Spotlight
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Spotlight
Subsea power grid
As global leader for transmission and distribution of electricity, Siemens is the first
company in the world to offer a subsea power grid solution. This solution encompasses transformers, switchgears and variable speed drives, to control electrically
driven pumps and turbocompressors.
Subsea power grids combine transmission and control & communication elements
on a single frame and can be integrated with surface components directly on the seabed. They are a key solution to enable subsea production, the power for which is provided by an onshore or topside combined-cycle power plant. Due to the immense
depths involved, maintenance has to be done using remotely operating vehicles.
To gain highest compression reliability, Siemens has reduced the complexity of the
compression solution (STC-ECO) to a minimum. Also in August, the STC-ECO seal-less
compressor unit for dirty-gas and subsea applications successfully completed its factory test program. Completion of the factory acceptance tests is a major milestone in
the system qualification program and for marinization of the equipment, which will
be an important cornerstone for subsea processing at a water depth of 3,000 meters
in the future.
1
Typical subsea production
facilities powered and
controlled by Siemens’
subsea power grid.
2
Aerial view of Siemens’
Subsea Competence Center
(bottom left),
Trondheim, Norway.
a dozen subsea processing units exist worldwide. By 2017 their number is expected to reach
almost 50. As more and more offshore fields
mature, they will need to be retrofitted as well.
Even in relatively shallow water, subsea extraction can be the solution of choice: For example,
newly discovered pockets of oil can be too far
from an existing oil rig — “floaters” can
be the answer here. These floaters are a kind of
satellite to the existing rig. However, their carrying capacity for pumps and compressors is
1
limited, so some of this heavy equipment must
be installed on the seabed. In other cases deposits are relatively close to the shore, allowing
the entire installation to go subsea without a
rig or any kind of floater at all. A pipeline on the
seabed transports the oil to shore and a long
electric cable transmits the necessary operating
power from the shore — bridging distances of
up to 200 kilometers.
More difficult the deeper one goes
However, deep sea exploration will be one of
the most important applications for subsea
processing units, and, unfortunately, one of
the most complicated ones, technologically.
Conditions become more difficult at greater
depths. Building the compressors, separators,
booster pumps, water injection pumps and
multiphase pumps, as well as the multiple
valves that can operate in this environment, is
an engineering masterpiece. Powering all this
equipment electrically is equally remarkable.
And this is precisely what Siemens is working
on: bringing switchgear units, variable speed
drives, control systems and cables deep under
the sea. And not just a few meters, but up to
3000 meters below the surface.
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Spotlight
“latest research in flow dynamics helps us understand
and improve the flow of
multiphase mixtures in subsea production structures.”
Claudia Martins da Silva, Chemical engineer, Chemtech Brazil
One somewhat clumsy option is to put standard electrical equipment (similar to that used
onshore) into huge steel tanks which are then
hoisted down to the seabed. “Such tanks would
have to endure pressures of up to 300 bar in
the deep sea environment, while maintaining
one bar inside, in order to keep the electrical
equipment working inside. Their walls would
have to be up to 20 centimeters thick, making
them extremely heavy,” explains Ove Bø, head
of research and development at the Siemens
Power Electronic Center.
Bø’s teams in Trondheim and at other branches
of Siemens Offshore Solutions, in the uS and
in Brazil, are jointly working on a more sophisticated way of powering subsea oil-processing
units. “Siemens switchgears and speed drives
will work in oil-filled containers, rather than
air-filled ones. This is already standard for
transformers and can be done with other equipment as well,” says Bø.
The advantage: oil-filled tanks maintain the
same pressure inside and outside, without
damaging the electrical equipment they contain. This allows for relatively thin steel walls,
even thousands of meters below sea level, reducing both weight and size to about one
sixth. This in turn makes both installation and
maintenance less costly. The lighter the containers, the cheaper it is to hoist them up and
down. Also, heat transfer is better in the case
of oil-filled containers, making cooling less of
a problem.
By 2013 a holistic Siemens subsea grid solution
is expected to be ready for the market. “The
complexities of a deep sea grid are great. It is a
tangible benefit for a client to have it delivered
by one supplier who can master the complexity
and guarantees it works,” says lystad. Siemens
has been a leader in the provision of subsea
automation, communication and control power
solutions for the past 15 years. For example,
Siemens has supplied Norwegian oil company
Statoil with control systems that operate at
depths of 350 meters for its Snorre project in
the North Sea. In 1998, Siemens began supplying Brazil’s Petrobras with transformers
designed to operate in depths of 1,000 meters
for the subsea Carapeba oil field near Rio de
Janeiro.
Ever more extreme conditions
But taking into account dwindling reserves of
existing fields, new exploration is venturing out
into areas with ever more extreme conditions.
For example, Statoil has been developing new
oil and gas fields in the deep Arctic waters
off Northern Norway, where sub-zero temperatures, violent storms, and icebergs pose constant hazards. under these conditions, reliability of the technological solution is vital. In the
warmer waters off the Brazilian coast, near Rio,
the challenges are different, but no less demanding. The newly discovered oil deposits
there lie below 2,000 meters of water and then
5,000 meters of salt, sand and rocks. An advanced subsea grid solution will be needed to
reach this treasure.
Giving that the challenge is of worldwide scope,
Siemens is working in international teams to
develop solutions. And it is at this point that
the common interests of Brazilians and Norwegians turn out to be helpful. Claudia Martins
da Silva is living proof. She finds herself rather
comfortable in Trondheim, where she is doing
postdoctoral research. A chemical engineer,
Claudia had worked for the Brazilian company
Chemtech. When Siemens took over Chemtech
in 2009, this opened up the possibility for her
to go abroad on a three-year research assignment.
Labyrinth of tubes
“I had done my doctoral thesis in Brazil on flow
dynamics of multiphase mixtures — the mix of
sand, water, oil and gas that is usually extracted from wells. Norway is the most important
center of the offshore industry worldwide, so I
find excellent conditions for my work here,”
says Martins da Silva, standing between the
labyrinth of tubes that criss-cross the laboratory
she uses at the Norwegian Technology and
Science university (NTNu).
Her work is highly relevant to the subsea grid
as well. In greater depths, low temperatures
tend to affect the multiflow mix and its flow dynamics. Siemens supports the cooperation with
NTNu with up to 50 million Norwegian Crowns.
The results will help to make better use of the
treasures under the sea. And an unexpected, but
happy, by-product of the investment is the
growing friendship between two unlikely companions, Brazil and Norway. In fact, Siemens
is now opening two new subsea competence
centers in Houston, Texas, and Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, in addition to its existing center in
Trondheim, Norway.
TEXT
Andreas Kleinschmidt P H O T O S
Florian Sander
F u R T H E R R E l AT E D I N F O R M AT I O N
www.siemens.com/energy/venture
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Insight
1
2
3
4
1
The SST-800 steam turbine arriving by
barge on the nearby river
2+3 The power plant completed
4
The plant’s waste-heat boiler
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Insight
Against all odds — electric power
for Mymensingh in Bangladesh
Rural Bangladesh is not the most hospitable environment in terms of geography
or infrastructure in which to elevate a hi-tech combined-cycle power plant.
Monsoons, political unrest and fragile economy all had their part to play in the
‘power game’ where the outcome was very uncertain for a very long time.
The People’s Republic of Bangladesh, the “Country of Bengal” has had
a short and chequered history. Bordered by India on all sides except for a
small border with Burma (Myanmar) to the far southeast and by the Bay
of Bengal to the south, present-day Bangladesh was established by the
partition from India in 1947. The region then became East Pakistan, part
of the newly formed nation of Pakistan, finally becoming independent
after the Bangladesh liberation War in 1971. After independence, the new
state endured famines, natural disasters and widespread poverty, as well
as political turmoil and military coups. Since the restoration of democracy
in 1991, there has been relative calm and some economic progress.
Bangladesh is the seventh most populous country in the world and the
fourth poorest. Geographically, the country crosses the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta and is subject to annual monsoon floods and cyclones, but, despite its geographical hindrances, has made significant progress in human
development and reduction in population growth and continues to rise
to meet its societal challenges. It is indeed one of the N-11 (Next Eleven)
countries identified by Goldman Sachs investment bank as having the potential to become one of the worldʼs largest economies in the 21st century.
Electric power, of course, is one of the most important infrastructure facilities for the development of a countryʼs economy. In Bangladesh, this is
especially so in rural areas to support agriculture and small industries. A
stable power supply is becoming increasingly important for trade, commerce and industry, nationally and for export. This need led to the formation of the Rural Power Company, finally the proud owner of the Mymensingh combined-cycle power plant, one of the first BOO (Build — Own
— Operate) plants in the country.
Breaking ground in 2002, the plant was built in two phases, each built
round 2 x 35-megawatt (MW) gas turbine generators. In the third phase,
the 140MW gas-fired plant was to be converted into a combined-cycle
plant yielding 210MW. Siemens was chosen to be contractor, supervising
and coordinating plant construction and civil works, incorporating a
70MW SST-800 Siemens steam turbine into a plant consisting of 70 percent non-Siemens equipment, in part locally sourced.
Commercial operation for the additional extension (plus 70 MW) was
originally planned for 2006, but the customer had financial difficulties
and the plant went into suspension. September 2007, however, Siemens
received the PAC (Preliminary Acceptance Certificate) from the customer
— but still had 2,000 mandatory spare parts to deliver and 750 points on
the punch list. An international team of specialists was called in to complete the project, taking full account of the meteorological conditions in
Bangladesh, allowing transportation of heavy equipment on barges only
during the monsoon season.
Finally, however, in July of this year, the project team, under Dierk unterspann and Andreas Hofmann, project managers, were able to hand over
the plant to the eagerly awaiting customer. Dierk unterspann: “It is very
satisfying to be able finally to complete this project, within our time
constraints and to the satisfaction of our customer and our management,
especially since turnkey plant construction is not our core business. I think
we have demonstrated both our flexibility and our dedication under
difficult circumstances.”
TEXT
Elise Chaplin P H O T O S
Dierk Unterspann
F u R T H E R R E l AT E D I N F O R M AT I O N
www.siemens.com/venture
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