A salt extraction operation needed to move rapidly from an onshore to an offshore site provided by 5 km of pipework. The company turned to flow control partner Celeros to help meet the unique circumstances encountered at the new salt properly.
Overview of the 2 new water injection pumps for single and parallel operation, following installation and commissioning at the Frisia Zout BV web site.
A new salt extraction plant off the north coast of Holland has been introduced online ahead of schedule, stopping a possible halt in manufacturing when the present onshore nicely developed points. Frisia Zout BV, a part of K+S Minerals and Agriculture GmbH, was in a place to overcome the time and technical challenges of accelerating the venture 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 delivery in bulk to business. The remainder is packed in smaller quantities for use in meals production or made into cubes for water purification.
The salt is extracted underneath licence from the Dutch government. The existing borehole licence
allowed K+S to extract salt from underground on the mainland. Due to regulatory changes, the new licence would solely allow extraction from subsea sources off the coast. Consequently, a new borehole and related plant was required at the Frisia Zout BV site.
New challenges
K+S started planning for a brand new pump building in 2017, and building started in April 2020 with the goal of bringing it onstream earlier than the existing extraction licence expired on the end of 2021. However, unforeseen difficulties arose with the existing onshore properly, which meant that manufacturing would stop sooner than anticipated. To bridge the gap, Frisia Zout BV started bringing in salt water by tanker, however this was an costly various. As a result, it became crucial to deliver the brand new offshore well onstream as soon as possible.
Time pressures were not the one challenges the corporate faced. Due to the pure geology, the extraction path to the new offshore resource was not a straight bore: it changed direction twice earlier than reaching the salt deposits. In pressure gauge octa , the model 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 method water has to be pumped in at excessive pressure (250 barg) and at a high move price (450 m3/h) to extract the quantity of salt required, making the selection of pumps important to success.
Total solution
Frisia Zout BV has an extended and established relationship with Celeros FT via the ClydeUnion Pumps model, based not solely on the high quality of ITS OEM pumps but also on its capability to respond rapidly to any operational issues. The firm turned to its trusted move control partner as quickly as once more for help in meeting the unique circumstances encountered at the new salt well.
Celeros FT brand ClydeUnion Pumps assessed the circulate necessities for the water injection process on the new plant and verified that CUP-BB3 pumps might be made to fulfill necessities. The pumps had been specified with Duplex stainless-steel casings as a outcome of they might be working in a salt-laden environment. Celeros FT manufactured, equipped, installed and commissioned the mission-critical pumps for injecting water into the new offshore salt cavern, meeting unusual requirements for high pressure and excessive 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 ensure it met the model new obligation requirements.
Jouk Riemer, challenge manager for Frisia Zout BV, defined: “We have used CUP-BB3 pumps in the past and found that their multistage centrifugal design gives higher performance, in comparison with plunger pumps, for this application. We wanted to make use of them again for the new project. The Celeros FT staff responded to the challenges magnificently, using their engineering expertise to identify one of the best answer to meet the strain and circulate charges we required, delivering the pump skids to meet the model new building schedule and serving to us maintain the project on track.”
Future assured
The new salt extraction plant came online in December 2020. Its CUP-BB3 pumps meet the excessive stress and flow rates required for the appliance and might run in parallel, which has improved productivity. The availability of a spare pump gives further confidence that manufacturing downtime shall be minimal. The company’s capacity to meet the accelerated venture deadline is particularly impressive when you assume about that the Covid-19 pandemic was already affecting supplies of materials and components. The Celeros FT group labored exhausting to ensure that this did not have any impact on their buyer.
Celeros FT also offered specialist engineering experience throughout the set up and commissioning section and will continue to ensure the pumps operate satisfactorily all through the plant’s 15-year lifespan, although the pump constructing could also be required to serve a couple of nicely in future as demand for K+S high purity salt continues to develop. Easy alternative of wear and tear elements and ongoing service assist from Celeros FT will make certain that the BB3 pumps proceed to fulfill operational parameters all through the extraction plant’s lifetime.
Riemer said: “The mixture of high quality OEM tools and practical engineering expertise provided by Celeros Flow Technology was instrumental in delivering this venture forward of time. I’m convinced 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 website viable.” Riemer concluded: “This is the primary offshore extraction nicely we’ve developed however it has been a largely positive experience thanks to Celeros Flow Technology. They introduced invaluable engineering experience and specialist pump knowledge to this project and are a basic part of its success.”
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