A salt extraction operation needed to transfer quickly from an onshore to an offshore web site equipped by 5 km of pipework. The company turned to flow management associate Celeros to help meet the unique circumstances encountered on the new salt nicely.
Overview of the 2 new water injection pumps for single and parallel operation, following installation and commissioning on the Frisia Zout BV web site.
A new salt extraction plant off the north coast of Holland has been introduced online ahead of schedule, preventing a possible halt in manufacturing when the existing onshore well developed issues. 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 unfastened to a 40,000-tonne storage facility for supply in bulk to business. The the rest is packed in smaller portions to be used in food production or made into cubes for water purification.
The salt is extracted beneath licence from the Dutch authorities. The current borehole licence
allowed K+S to extract salt from underground on the mainland. Due to regulatory changes, the brand new licence would solely allow extraction from subsea sources off the coast. Consequently, a new borehole and related plant was required on the Frisia Zout BV site.
New challenges
K+S started planning for a new pump building in 2017, and development began 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 well, which meant that manufacturing would cease before anticipated. To bridge the gap, Frisia Zout BV started bringing in salt water by tanker, however this was an costly alternative. As a end result, it turned crucial to convey the new offshore well onstream as soon as possible.
Time pressures were not the one challenges the corporate faced. Due to the natural geology, the extraction route to the model new offshore useful resource was not a straight bore: it changed path twice earlier than reaching the salt deposits. In reality, the new plant is fed by one of many deepest wells on the earth and has 5 km of pipework beyond the water injection pumps. As a end result, the method water has to be pumped in at high stress (250 barg) and at a high circulate fee (450 m3/h) to extract the amount of salt required, making the selection of pumps important to success.
Total answer
Frisia Zout BV has a long and established relationship with Celeros FT via the ClydeUnion Pumps brand, primarily based not solely on the prime quality of ITS OEM pumps but additionally on its ability to reply rapidly to any operational issues. The firm turned to its trusted circulate control partner as soon as once more for assist in meeting the distinctive circumstances encountered at the new salt nicely.
Celeros FT model ClydeUnion Pumps assessed the move requirements for the water injection process at the new plant and verified that CUP-BB3 pumps could possibly be made to meet necessities. The pumps have been specified with Duplex stainless-steel casings as a end result of they would be operating in a salt-laden environment. Celeros FT manufactured, provided, installed and commissioned the mission-critical pumps for injecting water into the model new offshore salt cavern, meeting unusual necessities for top strain and excessive flow rates. In addition, they supported Frisia Zout BV in bringing an older pump again into service as a spare: assessing it and upgrading the casing to ensure it met the new responsibility requirements.
Jouk Riemer, project supervisor for Frisia Zout BV, defined: “We have used CUP-BB3 pumps in the past and found that their multistage centrifugal design provides higher performance, in comparison with plunger pumps, for this software. We wished to make use of them again for the new challenge. ไดอะแฟรม responded to the challenges magnificently, utilizing their engineering experience to identify one of the best resolution to meet the strain and flow rates we required, delivering the pump skids to fulfill the new development schedule and helping us maintain the project on observe.”
Future assured
The new salt extraction plant came on-line in December 2020. Its CUP-BB3 pumps meet the high strain and move rates required for the applying and can run in parallel, which has improved productivity. The availability of a spare pump gives extra confidence that manufacturing downtime might be minimal. The company’s capacity to meet the accelerated venture deadline is especially impressive when you consider that the Covid-19 pandemic was already affecting supplies of supplies and parts. The Celeros FT group labored exhausting to ensure that this did not have any influence on their buyer.
Celeros FT also supplied specialist engineering expertise all through the set up and commissioning phase and will proceed to ensure the pumps function satisfactorily throughout the plant’s 15-year lifespan, though the pump constructing may be required to serve more than one nicely in future as demand for K+S excessive purity salt continues to grow. Easy substitute of wear components and ongoing service support from Celeros FT will ensure that the BB3 pumps proceed to satisfy operational parameters throughout the extraction plant’s lifetime.
Riemer stated: “The mixture of top of the range OEM equipment and sensible engineering skills provided by Celeros Flow Technology was instrumental in delivering this project forward of time. I’m satisfied it would have taken a lot longer to get what we required from one other pump manufacturer. The company’s responsiveness was essential in meeting our revised deadline, reducing prices and preserving extraction at this website viable.” Riemer concluded: “This is the primary offshore extraction nicely we now have developed nevertheless it has been a largely optimistic expertise due to Celeros Flow Technology. They introduced invaluable engineering experience and specialist pump knowledge to this venture and are a fundamental part of its success.”
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