Rising to the salt extraction challenge

A salt extraction operation had to transfer rapidly from an onshore to an offshore site equipped by 5 km of pipework. The company turned to circulate management associate Celeros to help meet the distinctive circumstances encountered at the new salt nicely.
Overview of the two new water injection pumps for single and parallel operation, following set up and commissioning on the Frisia Zout BV web site.
A new salt extraction plant off the north coast of Holland has been brought online ahead of schedule, preventing a potential halt in production when the present onshore nicely developed points. Frisia Zout BV, a part of K+S Minerals and Agriculture GmbH, was capable of overcome the time and technical challenges of accelerating the project by working in partnership with Celeros Flow Technology (Celeros FT).
The bulk of the salt produced by Frisia Zout BV goes loose to a forty,000-tonne storage facility for delivery in bulk to industry. The remainder is packed in smaller portions to be used in meals production or made into cubes for water purification.
The salt is extracted underneath licence from the Dutch authorities. The present borehole licence

allowed K+S to extract salt from underground on the mainland. Due to regulatory modifications, the brand new licence would only permit extraction from subsea sources off the coast. Consequently, a brand new borehole and related plant was required on the Frisia Zout BV site.
New challenges

K+S began planning for a new pump constructing in 2017, and construction started in April 2020 with the purpose of bringing it onstream earlier than the existing extraction licence expired at the finish of 2021. However, unforeseen difficulties arose with the prevailing onshore nicely, which meant that manufacturing would stop sooner than anticipated. To bridge the hole, Frisia Zout BV began bringing in salt water by tanker, but this was an expensive different. As a end result, it turned imperative to deliver the new offshore well onstream as soon as possible.
Time pressures were not the one challenges the company faced. Due to the natural geology, the extraction path to the model new offshore resource was not a straight bore: it changed path twice earlier than reaching the salt deposits. In reality, the model new plant is fed by one of the deepest wells in the world and has 5 km of pipework beyond the water injection pumps. As a result, the process water has to be pumped in at excessive stress (250 barg) and at a high move fee (450 m3/h) to extract the quantity of salt required, making the selection of pumps critical to success.
Total solution

Frisia Zout BV has a protracted and established relationship with Celeros FT by way of the ClydeUnion Pumps brand, based not solely on the top quality of ITS OEM pumps but also on its capability to reply rapidly to any operational issues. The firm turned to its trusted circulate control partner once again for assist in meeting the distinctive circumstances encountered at the new salt nicely.
Celeros FT brand ClydeUnion Pumps assessed the circulate necessities for the water injection process on the new plant and verified that CUP-BB3 pumps could probably be made to fulfill necessities. The pumps were specified with Duplex stainless-steel casings because they might be working in a salt-laden environment. Celeros FT manufactured, provided, installed and commissioned the mission-critical pumps for injecting water into the brand new offshore salt cavern, meeting unusual requirements for prime stress and excessive circulate charges. 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 obligation requirements.
Jouk Riemer, venture supervisor for Frisia Zout BV, defined: “We have used CUP-BB3 pumps prior to now and located that their multistage centrifugal design provides higher performance, in comparison with plunger pumps, for this software. We needed to make use of them once more for the model new venture. The Celeros FT team responded to the challenges magnificently, using their engineering experience to determine the best resolution to meet the stress and flow rates we required, delivering the pump skids to meet the new building schedule and serving to us keep the project on track.”

Future assured

The new salt extraction plant came online in December 2020. Its CUP-BB3 pumps meet the high pressure and move charges required for the applying and might run in parallel, which has improved productiveness. The availability of a spare pump offers additional confidence that manufacturing downtime will be minimal. เกวัดแรงดัน ’s capability to fulfill the accelerated venture deadline is particularly impressive when you consider that the Covid-19 pandemic was already affecting provides of materials and components. The Celeros FT team labored onerous to ensure that this did not have any influence on their customer.
Celeros FT also provided specialist engineering expertise throughout the installation and commissioning phase and can continue to ensure the pumps function satisfactorily throughout the plant’s 15-year lifespan, though the pump constructing could also be required to serve more than one properly in future as demand for K+S high purity salt continues to grow. Easy alternative of damage components and ongoing service help from Celeros FT will make positive that the BB3 pumps continue to meet operational parameters all through the extraction plant’s lifetime.
Riemer mentioned: “The combination of high quality OEM tools and sensible engineering abilities supplied by Celeros Flow Technology was instrumental in delivering this project ahead of time. I’m convinced it would have taken so much longer to get what we required from another pump producer. The company’s responsiveness was essential in assembly our revised deadline, lowering costs and keeping extraction at this site viable.” Riemer concluded: “This is the primary offshore extraction nicely we now have developed but it has been a largely positive expertise due to Celeros Flow Technology. They introduced invaluable engineering experience and specialist pump knowledge to this challenge and are a elementary part of its success.”

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