APTECH Petrochemical Awarded Major Project with SUNCOR Energy
The APTECH Alberta office in Edmonton has been awarded a major project with SUNCOR Energy. The project involves design phase Risk Based Inspection, Corrosion and Integrity studies for the proposed SUNCOR Voyageur upgrade project. APTECH’s role in the project is to provide front end engineering for the following:
- Risk Based Inspection
- Criticality Analysis
- Corrosion Control Manuals
- Operating Windows
- Corrosion Circuits
- Inspection Strategies and Plans
- RBI Software
- Training
APTECH’s team of engineers will be working closely with several EPC contractors as well as the SUNCOR Voyageur team. The project is to start immediately and as design drawings and other related information are completed by the EPC contractors, this data will be handed over to APTECH to begin the criticality studies and analysis.
In February 2006 APTECH opened an office in Edmonton to take advantage of the expanding tar sands projects in Alberta province. Domestic and Global Companies are investing CDN $140 billion in heavy-oil projects during the next 15 years to produce 3.5 million b/d. By 2025, Alberta’s heavy oil productions will more than quadruple to 1.7 billion bbl. Many refiners in the US are now adapting their facilities so they can handle and process the Canadian heavy oil.
APTECH Alberta currently has 3 engineers working out of its Edmonton office and uses support from Houston and Sunnyvale on an as needed basis. The office has completed projects for OPTI, Nexen, Invista, Nova and CNRL.
APTECH AWARDED TOTAL OFFSHORE RBI PROJECT
The APTECH Petro office has been awarded a project to conduct a RBI and Asset Integrity study on the topsides equipment of TOTAL’s Gulf of Mexico’s deepwater platforms, the Matterhorn and Virgo. APTECH was awarded the project over DNV and ABS and will be working closely with the offshore inspection company Owensby and Kritikos based out of New Orleans. The project will kick-off on September 20th. The Virgo platform is fixed and has a jacket weighing approximately 25,000 tons. It is the third structure of this size to be installed in the Gulf of Mexico and the fourth in the world. Work and installation were carried out in a record time of 16 months. |
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The Matterhorn Field is located in the Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi Canyon Block 243 (MC 243) in 2,811’ of water, 30 miles SE of the mouth of the Mississippi river and 100 miles SE of New Orleans (Louisiana). TOTAL E&P USA, Inc. has 100% ownership of the Matterhorn field development. A tension-leg platform is installed in 2,788 feet of water.
FIELD
Matterhorn Field is developed with a floating structure, comprising the wellheads and the separation and treatment installations. The platform has a throughput capacity of 33,000 barrels of oil per day and more than 55 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. Production is brought to shore through connections to the existing subsea pipeline network.
MATTERHORN SEASTAR HULL
The TLP is an Atlantia SeaStar design of the type previously installed on such deepwater projects as Chevron’s Typhoon and British-Borneo’s Morpeth and Allegheny fields. At 4500t, however, the Matterhorn SeaStar is the largest built to date, double the size of the previous units and the first unit of this design to incorporate dry trees.
In the field, the Matterhorn SeaStar has nine well slots and capacities of 35,000b/d of oil, 55 million scf/d of gas, 20,000b/d of water treated and 30,000b/d of water injected, as well as a 1000hp drilling rig and the capacity to add future tiebacks.
Hull fabrication began on 28 January 2002 and was completed on 31 December, on time and budget.
The topsides, with a lift weight of 5500 tons, were fabricated at the Gulf Marine Fabricators yard in Corpus Christi. The hull was fabricated in Singapore by Keppel Fels and delivered to the Gulf of Mexico in April. Heerema Marine Contractors performed installation. Although the installation was challenged by a severe loop eddy current event, tropical storm Bill and Hurricane Claudette, it was completed successfully.
Petro Staff get Offshore Qualified
Following the successful offshore project bid for CNRi, Steve Hall recently underwent offshore training in Aberdeen, Scotland. Steve has recently returned from conducting a RAM audit on the Baobab FPSO off the Ivory Coast, West Africa. The Petro office is also bidding further offshore projects with CNRi, as well as TOTAL in the Gulf of Mexico. In anticipation of these and future offshore projects, Don Christie and Ti Bui have also completed offshore training here in Houston.
Huntsman Chemical Corporation Project Grows
In January 2007 Huntsman Chemical Corporation awarded APTECH’s Petrochemical Business Unit a service agreement to provide ongoing support for their Mechanical Integrity Data Management Assessment at their PABC facility in Port Arthur, Texas. This work will continue throughout 2007.
BP Texas City – Piping Design Verification Project
In July 2007 BP Texas City awarded APTECH’s Petrochemical Business Unit a 3-month contract to perform rerating calculations on their RHU unit located in Texas City, Texas. Based on planning discussions with BP a couple of weeks ago, this project has now been deemed “critical path” by BP. As such, APTECH has been authorized to provide additional personnel to meet the new, accelerated timeline for the unit startup, which is scheduled for mid-November 2007.
Eastman Chemical Corporation Partnership Grows to
including Carolina Eastman Site
In August 2007 Carolina Eastman Chemical Corporation awarded APTECH’s Petrochemical Business Unit a project to provide Risk Assessment and related Data Integration Support of the facility’s Process Safety Management (PSM) covered assets. In the late nineties APTECH assisted Eastman with the development of a corporate RBI system.
Phillip Nidd will be instructing the following course in Johannesburg, South Africa, September 10th and 11th, 2007.
Houston Petrochemical Office Awarded African West Coast Offshore Contract
The Petrochemical Office has been awarded a sole source, $100,000 contract, by Canadian Natural Resources International (CNRI), a subsidiary of Canadian Natural Resources Limited. The project, which will be run through Aptech (Alberta), Ltd., includes an Integrity Management Program review and RBI, RAM Assessments for topsides critical equipment associated with CNRI’s Baobab production field offshore of the Ivory Coast in West Africa. This work is the first of its kind that APTECH has undertaken. It is anticipated that APTECH will be awarded additional work of the same nature to address CNRI’s full range of off-shore assets. Congratulations to Steve Hall and Jim Yukes for bringing in a great opportunity for the company.
Sunnyvale, California, July 2007 Paper “OCP in Line Inspection Program: Technical Challenges and Unique ILI Contractual Approaches”
Phillip Nidd of APTECH co-authored the Paper “OCP in Line Inspection Program: Technical Challenges and Unique ILI Contractual Approaches” for presentation at the Rio Pipeline Conference & Exposition October 2 – 4, 2007. Andres E. Mendizabal and Fabian Sanchez, OCP, were the other co-authors.
Sunnyvale, California, June 2007 Paper “Litigation Consequences of Pipeline Integrity Management Choices, Part 1”
Phillip Nidd of APTECH co-authored the paper “Litigation Consequences of Pipeline Integrity Management Choices, Part 1” for the June Issue of the Pipeline & Gas Journal. Anthony Sammons of Woodward, Hobson & Fulton, LLP and James Towers of James C. Towers, Inc. were the other co-authors. Part 2 will be published in the September 2007 issue of the Pipeline & Gas Journal.
Sunnyvale, California, Aug 2007 - APTECH Awarded Engineering Services Contract in Canada
Alberta heavy oil operations use Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) thermal recovery technology to extract bitumen from tar sands. They also generate steam for other applications including heating, process and Cogen power generation. The Aptech Alberta office has identified SAGD operations as a potential market for joint Power/Petro services relating to boilers, HRSGs and HEP. Marvin Cohn’s articles on HEP Integrity have been sent to several SAGD operations and the Petro Group is aggressively marketing joint services. OPTI and Nexen’s Long Lake facility near Fort McMurray in North Eastern Alberta has now recognized Aptech as a leader in integrity management services.
Based on Marvin’s articles and the success of Petro’s current project work at Nexen’s sister facility, OPTI Long Lake, APTECH was awarded a small project at Nexen. Kevin Hara spent a week at Long Lake assisting Nexen with a steam system warm up. Based on this project and Petro’s integrity studies at OPTI, Nexen has now awarded a year long engineering services contract to APTECH. Congratulations to the Canadian office and all those involved from Petro and Power.
APTECH HOSTS ENGINEERING ETHICS PRESENTATION
(June 07)
APTECH Petrochemical hosted a presentation on “Engineering Ethics,” conducted by a representative from the Texas Board of Professional Engineers (TBPE), Mr. Wesley Smith, P.E., Engineering Specialist, on Tuesday, June 19, 2007, at the BP Westlake Club. Twenty-one staff members as well as engineers from BP and ExxonMobile attended the presentation. The presentation was both informative and interesting and gave insights into how the legislators in the State of Texas view engineering work and projects. We hope to make it an annual event, inviting both staff and clients.
Thanks to Shelby Traylor, P.E., and R.J. Eckhardt for organizing the meeting.
APTECH BEATS MAJOR COMPETITORS (Jun 07)
APTECH Petrochemical has just been awarded a project by Delek Refining, Ltd to conduct an evaluation of the UOP FCC Stacked Unit Components. The remarkable thing about this bid was that there were six bidding companies. These included Shell Global Solutions, Becht Engineering, Equity Engineering, Stress Engineering, Capstone, and APTECH. After evaluating all bids and checking references, APTECH was awarded the project.
Congratulations to Mike Cronin, Dick Moser, and Gilbert Barrera for putting the engineering methodology and the winning bid package together.