Increase in Saudi Arabia gas production

As ear­ly as 2013, a total of 40 process diaphragm pumps were deliv­ered to two large off­shore plat­forms on the Per­sian Gulf for the pur­pose of pump­ing approx. 70 mil­lion m³ of nat­ur­al gas per day and pro­duc­ing about 50 mil­lion m³ of gas that is ready for sale. The order, worth around 30 mil­lion euros, was the largest in the his­to­ry of Lewa at the time–and then the fol­low-up order was placed in the sum­mer of 2017: A total of eight LGB2 Box­er pumps and 12 LDH5 series process pumps have been ordered for trans­fer­ring monoeth­yl­ene gly­col (MEG) from the Tie In Plat­forms (TP) to the Well Head Plat­forms (WHP) and on-site MEG injec­tion. This injec­tion is intend­ed to pre­vent the ice for­ma­tion in the drill hole that can occur dur­ing the for­ma­tion of methane hydrate. The project will be com­plet­ed in 2019.
The plant, which was built in 2013 and has been the largest of its kind in Sau­di Ara­bia ever since, has now been expand­ed to han­dle hav­ing its dai­ly gas flow of 70 mil­lion m³ increased by anoth­er 56 mil­lion m³. “A fun­da­men­tal goal of the client is to grad­u­al­ly con­vert the ener­gy util­i­ties of the coun­try from crude oil to gas in order to make more crude oil avail­able for the glob­al mar­ket” explains Klaus Fig­gle, Engi­neer­ing Project Man­ag­er at Lewa.
The eight LGB2 Box­er pumps with the cor­re­spond­ing M9 pump heads were installed on the Tie In Plat­forms (TP). They are respon­si­ble for trans­fer­ring monoeth­yl­ene gly­col (MEG) to the Well Head Plat­forms (WHP). The LGB2 pumps oper­ate with a rel­a­tive­ly low pres­sure of about 205 bar, since they only have to over­come the drop in pres­sure in the sup­ply line between the plat­forms. The LGB mod­u­lar dri­ve unit, which has already been used as an LGB3 mod­el for the pre­lim­i­nary project, stands out for its com­pact­ness and very high pow­er density.
WEG Ger­many was acquired as a coop­er­a­tion part­ner for the project. The order was processed as the first major project involv­ing WEG as a pow­er­train man­u­fac­tur­er. The cus­tom-designed pow­er­train solu­tion con­sists of ener­gy-effi­cient motors and com­plete con­trol cab­i­net sys­tems with inte­grat­ed fre­quen­cy inverters–ideal for off­shore appli­ca­tions. WEG, one of the largest glob­al elec­tric motor man­u­fac­tur­ers, has the nec­es­sary approval of the end client for its plant in Brazil.

The twelve LDH5 series injec­tion pumps, with cor­re­spond­ing M8 pump heads, con­sist of five cou­pled sin­gle pow­er­trains. “Sim­i­lar­ly to the pre­lim­i­nary project, the MEG con­tin­u­ous­ly cir­cu­lates between the plat­forms and the gly­col regen­er­a­tion units in the onshore prepa­ra­tion plants,” Fig­gle con­tin­ues. “In the process of pre­vent­ing methane hydrate accu­mu­la­tion, our injec­tion pumps inject the MEG at the nec­es­sary points to elim­i­nate ice for­ma­tion in the drill holes. In addi­tion to the pres­sure drops in the lines, these pumps must also over­come the back pres­sure from the source, which is why pres­sures of up to 600 bar must be expected.”
The M8 pump heads installed for this pur­pose are equipped with PTFE diaphragms, which can han­dle even high pres­sure with­out prob­lems, and offer fur­ther advan­tages when com­pared to the orig­i­nal­ly required met­al diaphragms. Since pumps with met­al diaphragms are usu­al­ly larg­er and heav­ier, Lewa offered the PTFE diaphragms to pro­vide the client with a solu­tion which–in addi­tion to space and size advantages–also result­ed in a reduc­tion in the pro­duc­tion costs of the entire plat­form. Lewa is the only com­pa­ny in the world qual­i­fied to sup­ply pumps with PTFE diaphragms for the end client in Sau­di Ara­bia, which are designed for a pres­sure of over 350 bar.
“This solu­tion, devel­oped specif­i­cal­ly for the appli­ca­tion, was com­plet­ed smooth­ly by all par­ties involved and deliv­ered on time,” Fig­gle says to sum­ma­rize. “On the whole, all sides have been very pleased with the project. It will be hand­ed over to the client in 2019.”