Rising to the salt extraction problem

A salt extraction operation needed to transfer shortly from an onshore to an offshore web site equipped by 5 km of pipework. The company turned to flow control partner Celeros to help meet the unique circumstances encountered on the new salt well.
เกจวัดแรงดันถังแก๊ส of the two 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 well developed points. Frisia Zout BV, 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 loose to a 40,000-tonne storage facility for supply in bulk to business. The remainder is packed in smaller portions to be used in food manufacturing or made into cubes for water purification.
The salt is extracted underneath licence from the Dutch government. The current borehole licence
allowed K+S to extract salt from underground on the mainland. Due to regulatory adjustments, the new licence would only permit extraction from subsea sources off the coast. Consequently, a new borehole and associated plant was required at the Frisia Zout BV site.
New challenges
K+S started planning for a brand new pump constructing in 2017, and construction began in April 2020 with the aim of bringing it onstream earlier than the prevailing extraction licence expired on the end of 2021. However, unexpected difficulties arose with the existing 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, however this was an costly alternative. As a end result, it became crucial to bring the new offshore well onstream as quickly as possible.
Time pressures were not the only challenges the corporate faced. Due to the pure geology, the extraction route to the model new offshore resource was not a straight bore: it modified path twice before 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 past the water injection pumps. As a result, the method water needs to be pumped in at excessive strain (250 barg) and at a high move rate (450 m3/h) to extract the quantity of salt required, making the selection of pumps important to success.
Total answer
Frisia Zout BV has a protracted and established relationship with Celeros FT through the ClydeUnion Pumps model, based mostly not only on the high quality of ITS OEM pumps but in addition on its capacity to respond shortly to any operational points. The company turned to its trusted move control partner as soon as again for assist in meeting the unique circumstances encountered on the new salt properly.
Celeros FT model ClydeUnion Pumps assessed the flow necessities for the water injection course of at the new plant and verified that CUP-BB3 pumps might be made to meet requirements. The pumps were specified with Duplex stainless-steel casings as a result of they would be operating in a salt-laden environment. Celeros FT manufactured, equipped, put in and commissioned the mission-critical pumps for injecting water into the new offshore salt cavern, meeting uncommon necessities for top stress and high move 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 make sure it met the new duty necessities.
Jouk Riemer, challenge manager for Frisia Zout BV, explained: “We have used CUP-BB3 pumps in the past and located that their multistage centrifugal design gives higher efficiency, compared to plunger pumps, for this software. We needed to make use of them once more for the new venture. The Celeros FT staff responded to the challenges magnificently, utilizing their engineering experience to establish the most effective answer to satisfy the pressure and move rates we required, delivering the pump skids to fulfill the new construction schedule and helping us maintain the project on track.”
Future assured
The new salt extraction plant got here online in December 2020. Its CUP-BB3 pumps meet the high stress and move rates required for the applying and may run in parallel, which has improved productivity. The availability of a spare pump offers additional confidence that manufacturing downtime shall be minimal. The company’s capacity to satisfy the accelerated challenge deadline is particularly spectacular when you consider that the Covid-19 pandemic was already affecting supplies of supplies and components. The Celeros FT staff labored hard to make sure that this did not have any impact on their customer.
Celeros FT additionally offered specialist engineering expertise throughout the installation and commissioning part and can continue to make sure the pumps function satisfactorily all through the plant’s 15-year lifespan, though the pump building could additionally be required to serve more than one properly in future as demand for K+S excessive purity salt continues to grow. Easy replacement of wear components and ongoing service assist from Celeros FT will be certain that the BB3 pumps proceed to meet operational parameters throughout the extraction plant’s lifetime.
Riemer stated: “The combination of high quality OEM equipment and sensible engineering expertise offered by Celeros Flow Technology was instrumental in delivering this challenge ahead of time. I’m satisfied it will have taken a lot longer to get what we required from one other pump producer. The company’s responsiveness was crucial in assembly our revised deadline, decreasing costs and preserving extraction at this website viable.” Riemer concluded: “This is the primary offshore extraction well we’ve developed but it has been a largely optimistic expertise thanks to Celeros Flow Technology. They brought invaluable engineering expertise and specialist pump data to this project and are a basic a half of its success.”
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