Rising to the salt extraction challenge

A salt extraction operation had to move shortly from an onshore to an offshore site supplied by 5 km of pipework. The company turned to flow management companion Celeros to help meet the unique 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 site.
A new salt extraction plant off the north coast of Holland has been brought online forward of schedule, preventing a possible halt in manufacturing when the present onshore well developed issues. Frisia Zout BV, a half of K+S Minerals and Agriculture GmbH, was in a place to overcome the time and technical challenges of accelerating the challenge 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 business. The remainder is packed in smaller portions to be used in meals manufacturing or made into cubes for water purification.
The salt is extracted under licence from the Dutch authorities. The current borehole licence
allowed K+S to extract salt from underground on the mainland. Due to regulatory adjustments, the model new licence would solely allow extraction from subsea sources off the coast. Consequently, a model new borehole and related plant was required on the Frisia Zout BV web site.
New challenges
K+S began planning for a model new pump building in 2017, and construction started in April 2020 with the goal of bringing it onstream earlier than the prevailing extraction licence expired on the end of 2021. However, unforeseen difficulties arose with the prevailing onshore well, which meant that manufacturing would stop sooner than anticipated. To bridge the gap, Frisia Zout BV started bringing in salt water by tanker, however this was an expensive various. As a end result, it grew to become imperative to bring the new offshore nicely onstream as quickly as potential.
Time pressures weren’t the one challenges the corporate confronted. Due to the natural geology, the extraction path to the new offshore useful resource was not a straight bore: it modified course twice before reaching the salt deposits. In reality, the new plant is fed by one of the deepest wells on the planet and has 5 km of pipework past the water injection pumps. As a outcome, the method water must be pumped in at excessive stress (250 barg) and at a excessive flow price (450 m3/h) to extract the amount of salt required, making the choice of pumps crucial to success.
Total resolution
Frisia Zout BV has an extended and established relationship with Celeros FT through the ClydeUnion Pumps brand, based mostly not solely on the prime quality of ITS OEM pumps but also on its ability to respond quickly to any operational points. The company turned to its trusted circulate management partner once again for assist in meeting the distinctive circumstances encountered at the new salt well.
Celeros FT brand ClydeUnion Pumps assessed the move requirements for the water injection course of at the new plant and verified that CUP-BB3 pumps could be made to meet requirements. The pumps have been specified with Duplex stainless-steel casings because they would be working in a salt-laden environment. Celeros FT manufactured, equipped, installed and commissioned the mission-critical pumps for injecting water into the brand new offshore salt cavern, assembly unusual requirements for high pressure and excessive 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 responsibility requirements.
Jouk Riemer, challenge supervisor for Frisia Zout BV, explained: “We have used CUP-BB3 pumps up to now and located that their multistage centrifugal design provides higher performance, in comparability with plunger pumps, for this utility. pressure gauge น้ำมัน wanted to use them again for the new project. The Celeros FT group responded to the challenges magnificently, using their engineering experience to establish the most effective solution to satisfy the strain and circulate rates we required, delivering the pump skids to fulfill the brand new construction schedule and helping us keep the project on monitor.”
Future assured
The new salt extraction plant came on-line in December 2020. Its CUP-BB3 pumps meet the excessive strain and circulate charges required for the application and can run in parallel, which has improved productiveness. The availability of a spare pump gives further confidence that manufacturing downtime shall be minimal. The company’s capability to fulfill the accelerated venture deadline is particularly impressive when you suppose about that the Covid-19 pandemic was already affecting provides of supplies and elements. The Celeros FT group labored hard to ensure that this did not have any impression on their customer.
Celeros FT also offered specialist engineering expertise all through the installation and commissioning section and will proceed to ensure the pumps operate satisfactorily throughout the plant’s 15-year lifespan, though the pump constructing could additionally be required to serve a couple of properly in future as demand for K+S excessive purity salt continues to develop. Easy replacement of put on and tear components and ongoing service assist from Celeros FT will ensure that the BB3 pumps proceed to satisfy operational parameters throughout the extraction plant’s lifetime.
Riemer mentioned: “The mixture of top of the range OEM equipment and practical engineering abilities offered by Celeros Flow Technology was instrumental in delivering this project ahead of time. I’m satisfied it will have taken so much longer to get what we required from one other pump producer. The company’s responsiveness was crucial in meeting our revised deadline, reducing prices and preserving extraction at this web site viable.” Riemer concluded: “This is the primary offshore extraction properly we now have developed however it has been a largely optimistic experience thanks to Celeros Flow Technology. They brought invaluable engineering experience and specialist pump knowledge to this challenge and are a basic a half of its success.”
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