Rising to the salt extraction problem

A salt extraction operation needed to transfer quickly from an onshore to an offshore web site supplied by 5 km of pipework. The company turned to move control companion Celeros to assist meet the unique circumstances encountered on the new salt nicely.
Overview of the 2 new water injection pumps for single and parallel operation, following set up and commissioning at the Frisia Zout BV website.
A new salt extraction plant off the north coast of Holland has been brought on-line ahead of schedule, stopping a possible halt in manufacturing when the prevailing onshore well developed issues. Frisia Zout BV, part of K+S Minerals and Agriculture GmbH, was able to 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 40,000-tonne storage facility for delivery in bulk to industry. The remainder is packed in smaller quantities to be used in food manufacturing or made into cubes for water purification.
The salt is extracted under licence from the Dutch government. เกจวัดแรงดัน1บาร์ existing borehole licence

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

K+S started planning for a new pump constructing in 2017, and construction began in April 2020 with the purpose of bringing it onstream before the existing extraction licence expired at the finish of 2021. However, unforeseen difficulties arose with the present onshore well, which meant that production would cease ahead of anticipated. To bridge the gap, Frisia Zout BV began bringing in salt water by tanker, but this was an costly various. As a result, it grew to become crucial to bring the brand new offshore nicely onstream as quickly as potential.
Time pressures weren’t the one challenges the company confronted. Due to the pure 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 truth, the new plant is fed by one of many deepest wells in the world and has 5 km of pipework past the water injection pumps. As a result, the process water needs to be pumped in at high strain (250 barg) and at a excessive move price (450 m3/h) to extract the amount of salt required, making the selection of pumps important to success.
Total solution

Frisia Zout BV has a protracted and established relationship with Celeros FT via the ClydeUnion Pumps brand, primarily based not only on the prime quality of ITS OEM pumps but additionally on its ability to reply rapidly to any operational points. The firm turned to its trusted flow control associate as soon as once more for help in assembly the distinctive circumstances encountered on the new salt properly.
Celeros FT model ClydeUnion Pumps assessed the move necessities for the water injection course of on the new plant and verified that CUP-BB3 pumps could presumably be made to satisfy necessities. The pumps have been specified with Duplex stainless-steel casings because they would be working in a salt-laden surroundings. Celeros FT manufactured, equipped, installed and commissioned the mission-critical pumps for injecting water into the model new offshore salt cavern, meeting unusual necessities for prime strain and high flow 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 make sure it met the brand new obligation requirements.
Jouk Riemer, project manager for Frisia Zout BV, explained: “We have used CUP-BB3 pumps in the past and located that their multistage centrifugal design provides higher efficiency, in comparability with plunger pumps, for this application. We needed to use them once more for the brand new venture. The Celeros FT team responded to the challenges magnificently, utilizing their engineering experience to establish one of the best solution to fulfill the stress and flow charges we required, delivering the pump skids to meet the new development schedule and helping us maintain the challenge on track.”

Future assured

The new salt extraction plant came online in December 2020. Its CUP-BB3 pumps meet the high strain and move charges required for the appliance and may run in parallel, which has improved productivity. The availability of a spare pump gives additional confidence that production downtime might be minimal. The company’s capacity to fulfill the accelerated challenge deadline is especially impressive when you think about that the Covid-19 pandemic was already affecting supplies of supplies and components. The Celeros FT group labored hard to make sure that this did not have any influence on their customer.
Celeros FT additionally supplied specialist engineering expertise all through the installation and commissioning part and will proceed to ensure the pumps function satisfactorily all through the plant’s 15-year lifespan, although the pump building may be required to serve multiple well in future as demand for K+S excessive purity salt continues to grow. Easy substitute of wear and tear components and ongoing service assist from Celeros FT will ensure that the BB3 pumps continue to meet operational parameters all through the extraction plant’s lifetime.
Riemer said: “The combination of top of the range OEM tools and practical engineering abilities supplied by Celeros Flow Technology was instrumental in delivering this project forward of time. I’m satisfied it might have taken so much longer to get what we required from another pump producer. The company’s responsiveness was essential in meeting our revised deadline, reducing prices and maintaining extraction at this web site viable.” Riemer concluded: “This is the primary offshore extraction nicely we now have developed however it has been a largely constructive experience thanks to Celeros Flow Technology. They introduced invaluable engineering experience and specialist pump data to this project and are a basic part of its success.”

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