- Email: [email protected]
Supplying to the US oil and gas industry
26
Feature WORLD PUMPS
February 2012
Oil & gas
Supplying to the US oil and gas industry New oil and gas projects offer significant opportunities and challenges to the US oil and gas industry and to the pump business. Many customers are seeing attractive economics, so they want deliveries as soon as possible. In this article Keith Loria talks to a number of suppliers and finds out what the demands are and how they can match them.
A
recent trend by the oil companies is to persuade pump manufacturers to buy into more of the plant operation risk – this being a possible result of increased insurance premiums, or the oil companies looking to offset some of these costs. The shale oil and shale gas boom in North America is the biggest game changer today. The ultra deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan Arctic represents potentially billions of barrels of oil equivalent. These are significant opportunities and challenges to the industry, and to the pump business, as new production projects are identified.
Even though oil and gas traditionally is a long-term growth segment, many customers today are seeing attractive economics coming from such projects, so they want deliveries as soon as possible to accelerate these activities. This is where the pumps come in.
The CFD revolution Computerized tools, such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), have revolutionized the pump design process, but the industry has seen plenty of other new technology come along to make the process easier, such as enhancements to software and its usage in the design and engi-
Figure 1. Sulzer Pumps' ultra high pressure water injection pump for the Tahiti Project in the Gulf of Mexico on the Gas Turbine Driven test stand at Sulzer Pumps UK. www.worldpumps.com
0262 1762/12 © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
neering of solutions. Work, including the Carbon Efficiency Design Project, using CF Turbo and ANSYS, helps design commercially viable and energy efficient impellers within demanding design lead-times. The ultra high pressure and subsea environments and conditions often typical to oil and gas production can be significant challenges to pump supply, installation and performance, and many of the pump companies are working on ways to navigate through the challenges. The following is a look at what some of the major pump companies are doing in the USA with regard to oil and gas.
Figure 2. Crude oil pipeline pumps ready for shipment at Sulzer Pumps - Portland Oregon.
WORLD PUMPS
Feature February 2012
Figure 3. Sulzer Pumps' subsea pumping solution getting ready for qualification testing at Sulzer Pumps UK.
Figure 4. The CUP-OH2 pump by ClydeUnion Pumps is a heavy duty, single stage, radially-split, overhung, end suction technology for oil and gas, desalination, power and general industrial applications.
Sulzer Pumps
As the oil and gas industry continues to move into deep water fields (most large oil fields over the last 10 years have been found offshore), reliable and efficient subsea processing becomes vital.
As a UK based pump manufacturer, having a global end-user market, Brigginshaw says that creating significant brand awareness and presence in any market needs to be planned, effective and consistent.
“Although subsea technology (see Figure 3) has been available for a number of years, allowing hydrocarbon recovery from the world’s most remote locations, reliable successful subsea processing technologies have proven elusive,” Niiranen says. “Sulzer aims to close this gap and meet the demands of our customers by providing innovative subsea solutions based on field proven topside technology.
“We’ve appointed as support our agent Ron Roberts (Fluid Engineering Equipment, Houston), but as our experience has shown in other regions where we have created a strong market presence, this process must be worked and managed,” he says. “We see Amarinth’s strengths in working closely with the USA contractors, hence the successful approach to date.”
Sulzer Pumps has two manufacturing plants, 13 service centres and 15 sales offices located in the USA, which manufacture, service and support equipment for the oil and gas sector. “Sulzer Pumps is engaged in the supply of engineered pipeline and high pressure water injections pump packages in the USA market,” says Richard J. Niiranen, Director Global Alliances for Sulzer Pumps. “The company has supplied hundreds of pumps in the USA and the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) for these applications over the past five years.” The company currently supplies pumping equipment for multiple pipeline projects, which transport crude oil from Alberta, Canada to the markets in the USA. It also delivers a number of pump packages for Tahiti, Jack/St Malo, Big Foot and Mars B oil production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico (see Figures 1 and 2). Sulzer Pumps HSB (API BB1) and MSD (API BB3) products are used for oil transport, while its HPcp (API BB5) pumps are used for ultra high pressure water injection. Continued Niiranen: “Our success in the oil and gas industry is based on our ability to break through technological barriers and provide reliable equipment. We are engaged with our customers from concept phase through design, manufacture, testing, installation and operation. We produced the first 27 MW water injection pump and delivered the world’s highest pressure water injection pump (605 bar discharge pressure), and now have designs available for higher pressures.”
“To supplement our multiphase boosting products, we have single-phase hydraulics for oil transport or injection purposes as well as gas tolerant hybrid designs for the subsea processing functions.”
Amarinth As a leading manufacturer of pumps for general industrial, chemical and petrochemical applications, Amarinth’s focus in the oil and gas industry has been heavily geared towards the contractor services based in the US. “We’ve seen an active increase in the last 36 months with USA based contractors supplying and serving the demands seen in the Middle East market,” says Oliver Brigginshaw, Managing Director of Amarinth. “The Middle East market has grown considerably for us, with demand and supply trebling over 36 months. We have been working very closely with USA-based contractors, being involved with engineering and technical solutions for the benefit of the end-user.”
With its active involvement through the likes of Fluor (Houston), the company is working on the Adma Opco project, Umm Lulu & Nasr Phase 2 development and Zubair project. “The emphasis here again is in the active links we have with the USA-based contractors servicing these major projects,” Brigginshaw says. “We’ve seen a huge demand for our VS4 range (API 610) solution. The high specifications and individual engineering
Figure 5. ClydeUnion’s CUP-BB3 pump is a heavy duty axial split case horizontal multistage pump specifically designed for heavy duty, medium and high pressure applications.
www.worldpumps.com
27
28
Feature WORLD PUMPS
February 2012
(Figures 5 and 6) are used for medium to high flow and high pressure applications for example, in pipeline, BFW and reactor charge services. The biggest buzz in the segment, according to Tuttle, are the recent finds in the Bakken and Marcellus regions that are showing potential for future business. “Carbon capture systems to be installed on existing plants may be a saviour for the USA pump market for 2012 to 2014,” he says.
ITT
Figure 6. The completed CUP-BB3 pumps in the ClydeUnion Pumps factory. (CHECK!!)
requirements, coupled with our ability to deliver against demanding lead-times, have resulted in a considerable increase in demand,” Brigginshaw says. “Many of these vertical pumps are destined for onshore downstream processes, often linked to refineries in either open drainage or pressure sealed tanks. We have in the last 12 months engineered and delivered vertical pumps for lengths from 2.5 m to 13 m, and in various exotic alloys and specification requirements.”
ClydeUnion Pumps ClydeUnion’s range of centrifugal and reciprocationg pumps have been designed to provide reliability for a wide range of conventional power applications, as well as for its markets of upstream oil, downstream oil, nuclear power, water and industrial, minerals and mining, and offshore and marine.
manufacturing that is forced to reduce the profit margins to take orders and fill shop capacity,” he says. “Manufacturing in low cost countries results in longer delivery cycles to get the equipment to the USA market. A limited number of high quality foundries in the USA results in delays to project timetables and an inability to obtain castings within a reasonable time frame. Pump manufacturing cycles will increase as a result of this situation.” ClydeUnion API code OH2 and BB2 pumps are used the most in refinery applications and are used in all processes within the refinery requiring a medium pressure and flow rate (Figure 4). API code BB3 pumps
“ITT is one of the top three suppliers of pump systems used by the USA oil and gas industry to transport and refine petroleum,” says John Bailey, global product marketing manager for ITT Goulds Pumps. “We also are a supplier of valves, offshore desalination equipment, pump systems controls and monitoring solutions.” The more interesting applications are associated with the company’s larger pumps. The BB3 (Figures 7, 8 and 9) and BB5 pumps, for example, are used in refinery applications, water injection services for oil drilling, special pipeline applications, boiler feed water services for power generation, and many other high-pressure applications. “It’s been an excellent year for ITT. In fact, 2011 will be a near-record year that will go a long way to erase the declines that our company experienced in the recent recession,” Bailey says. “We are tremendously proud of our ability to respond to customers in terms of product quality, timely delivery and efficient service.
“Specific to the oil and gas market, ClydeUnion Pumps manufacturers centrifugal, power, steam driven reciprocating pumps and aftermarket service and parts for both the onshore and offshore market segments,” says Chadwick E Tuttle, COO Americas, ClydeUnion Pumps. “We are a full range manufacturer and systems packager of both API 610 and API 674 pumps, providing aftermarket service for replacement parts and repairs for the oil and gas onshore and offshore markets. The equipment is used in applications across refineries, petrochemical plants, offshore oil platforms and pipelines.” Tuttle mentions that lower price and shorter delivery are the biggest challenges in the oil and gas market in the USA: “Cost is always being driven down. This means a serious challenge for USA and Canadian based www.worldpumps.com
Figure 7. Oil and gas is the largest market served by ITT Goulds Pumps. The ITT Goulds Pumps model 3600 (BB3), shown here in a water injection service, is in common use in petroleum refineries throughout the USA.
30
Feature WORLD PUMPS
February 2012
Figure 8. The ITT Goulds Pumps model 3600 (BB3) is an extremely reliable, high-performance pump well suited to a wide range of services in oil production, refining, pipeline usage and power generation.
One of our chief goals is to help customers maximize their process uptime – not just selling them the right products, but helping them to use our equipment efficiently and effectively as part of complete solutions.”
GE Oil & Gas GE has achieved significant success in the USA with the Transcanada pipeline (3,400 km) and Corridor pipeline projects – SNC Lavalin (450 km), and is continuing to play in the pipeline segment.
"With one-third of the world’s centrifugal API pump market, the USA presents great opportunities for future growth," says Francesco Falco, business leader for pumps, valves and systems for GE Oil & Gas. "We continue to invest in new technologies that will enable us to expand our presence in key segments in the USA market, such as upstream and oil sands." GE's oil & gas product line spans the entire oil and gas value chain, so it is able to integrate systems and provide customers
with what it says are ‘unique and tailored packages’ to optimize its production. Integral to the system is GE’s new DDHF CO2 pump, an optimized solution enabling customers to realize power savings as well as highly flexible performance upgrades. Based on GE’s hydraulic design, the enhanced DDHF is a multistage centrifugal pump specially re-engineered for CO2 pumping and EOR, delivering 540 bar discharge pressure — claimed to be the highest ever provided by a centrifugal pump in CO2 applications. GE Oil & Gas invests 4% of its revenue into research and development annually, much of it for upstream and renewable energy applications, such as water and CO2 reinjection. The company is also developing a full range of high performance, integrally geared, centrifugal, twin-screw and hybrid pumps for offshore applications. "We are growing year over year with annual growth rate of 30%. Our localization efforts, investment in technology, and partnership with customers are paying dividends for us in the USA market," Francesco Falco says. "We have a small but growing share of this market. Unconventional gas in the USA will increase the number of gas treatment facilities, therefore there will be a huge opportunity for our pump business in processes that require pumping products." ■
Contact
Figure 9. This ITT Goulds Pumps model 3620 (BB2) supports boiler feedwater service in a refinery. The pump is in wide use in petroleum refining, production, and distribution. www.worldpumps.com
Keith Loria Freelance writer Tel: 914-834-4041 Email: [email protected]
Feature WORLD PUMPS
February 2012
Oil & gas
Supplying to the US oil and gas industry New oil and gas projects offer significant opportunities and challenges to the US oil and gas industry and to the pump business. Many customers are seeing attractive economics, so they want deliveries as soon as possible. In this article Keith Loria talks to a number of suppliers and finds out what the demands are and how they can match them.
A
recent trend by the oil companies is to persuade pump manufacturers to buy into more of the plant operation risk – this being a possible result of increased insurance premiums, or the oil companies looking to offset some of these costs. The shale oil and shale gas boom in North America is the biggest game changer today. The ultra deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan Arctic represents potentially billions of barrels of oil equivalent. These are significant opportunities and challenges to the industry, and to the pump business, as new production projects are identified.
Even though oil and gas traditionally is a long-term growth segment, many customers today are seeing attractive economics coming from such projects, so they want deliveries as soon as possible to accelerate these activities. This is where the pumps come in.
The CFD revolution Computerized tools, such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), have revolutionized the pump design process, but the industry has seen plenty of other new technology come along to make the process easier, such as enhancements to software and its usage in the design and engi-
Figure 1. Sulzer Pumps' ultra high pressure water injection pump for the Tahiti Project in the Gulf of Mexico on the Gas Turbine Driven test stand at Sulzer Pumps UK. www.worldpumps.com
0262 1762/12 © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
neering of solutions. Work, including the Carbon Efficiency Design Project, using CF Turbo and ANSYS, helps design commercially viable and energy efficient impellers within demanding design lead-times. The ultra high pressure and subsea environments and conditions often typical to oil and gas production can be significant challenges to pump supply, installation and performance, and many of the pump companies are working on ways to navigate through the challenges. The following is a look at what some of the major pump companies are doing in the USA with regard to oil and gas.
Figure 2. Crude oil pipeline pumps ready for shipment at Sulzer Pumps - Portland Oregon.
WORLD PUMPS
Feature February 2012
Figure 3. Sulzer Pumps' subsea pumping solution getting ready for qualification testing at Sulzer Pumps UK.
Figure 4. The CUP-OH2 pump by ClydeUnion Pumps is a heavy duty, single stage, radially-split, overhung, end suction technology for oil and gas, desalination, power and general industrial applications.
Sulzer Pumps
As the oil and gas industry continues to move into deep water fields (most large oil fields over the last 10 years have been found offshore), reliable and efficient subsea processing becomes vital.
As a UK based pump manufacturer, having a global end-user market, Brigginshaw says that creating significant brand awareness and presence in any market needs to be planned, effective and consistent.
“Although subsea technology (see Figure 3) has been available for a number of years, allowing hydrocarbon recovery from the world’s most remote locations, reliable successful subsea processing technologies have proven elusive,” Niiranen says. “Sulzer aims to close this gap and meet the demands of our customers by providing innovative subsea solutions based on field proven topside technology.
“We’ve appointed as support our agent Ron Roberts (Fluid Engineering Equipment, Houston), but as our experience has shown in other regions where we have created a strong market presence, this process must be worked and managed,” he says. “We see Amarinth’s strengths in working closely with the USA contractors, hence the successful approach to date.”
Sulzer Pumps has two manufacturing plants, 13 service centres and 15 sales offices located in the USA, which manufacture, service and support equipment for the oil and gas sector. “Sulzer Pumps is engaged in the supply of engineered pipeline and high pressure water injections pump packages in the USA market,” says Richard J. Niiranen, Director Global Alliances for Sulzer Pumps. “The company has supplied hundreds of pumps in the USA and the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) for these applications over the past five years.” The company currently supplies pumping equipment for multiple pipeline projects, which transport crude oil from Alberta, Canada to the markets in the USA. It also delivers a number of pump packages for Tahiti, Jack/St Malo, Big Foot and Mars B oil production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico (see Figures 1 and 2). Sulzer Pumps HSB (API BB1) and MSD (API BB3) products are used for oil transport, while its HPcp (API BB5) pumps are used for ultra high pressure water injection. Continued Niiranen: “Our success in the oil and gas industry is based on our ability to break through technological barriers and provide reliable equipment. We are engaged with our customers from concept phase through design, manufacture, testing, installation and operation. We produced the first 27 MW water injection pump and delivered the world’s highest pressure water injection pump (605 bar discharge pressure), and now have designs available for higher pressures.”
“To supplement our multiphase boosting products, we have single-phase hydraulics for oil transport or injection purposes as well as gas tolerant hybrid designs for the subsea processing functions.”
Amarinth As a leading manufacturer of pumps for general industrial, chemical and petrochemical applications, Amarinth’s focus in the oil and gas industry has been heavily geared towards the contractor services based in the US. “We’ve seen an active increase in the last 36 months with USA based contractors supplying and serving the demands seen in the Middle East market,” says Oliver Brigginshaw, Managing Director of Amarinth. “The Middle East market has grown considerably for us, with demand and supply trebling over 36 months. We have been working very closely with USA-based contractors, being involved with engineering and technical solutions for the benefit of the end-user.”
With its active involvement through the likes of Fluor (Houston), the company is working on the Adma Opco project, Umm Lulu & Nasr Phase 2 development and Zubair project. “The emphasis here again is in the active links we have with the USA-based contractors servicing these major projects,” Brigginshaw says. “We’ve seen a huge demand for our VS4 range (API 610) solution. The high specifications and individual engineering
Figure 5. ClydeUnion’s CUP-BB3 pump is a heavy duty axial split case horizontal multistage pump specifically designed for heavy duty, medium and high pressure applications.
www.worldpumps.com
27
28
Feature WORLD PUMPS
February 2012
(Figures 5 and 6) are used for medium to high flow and high pressure applications for example, in pipeline, BFW and reactor charge services. The biggest buzz in the segment, according to Tuttle, are the recent finds in the Bakken and Marcellus regions that are showing potential for future business. “Carbon capture systems to be installed on existing plants may be a saviour for the USA pump market for 2012 to 2014,” he says.
ITT
Figure 6. The completed CUP-BB3 pumps in the ClydeUnion Pumps factory. (CHECK!!)
requirements, coupled with our ability to deliver against demanding lead-times, have resulted in a considerable increase in demand,” Brigginshaw says. “Many of these vertical pumps are destined for onshore downstream processes, often linked to refineries in either open drainage or pressure sealed tanks. We have in the last 12 months engineered and delivered vertical pumps for lengths from 2.5 m to 13 m, and in various exotic alloys and specification requirements.”
ClydeUnion Pumps ClydeUnion’s range of centrifugal and reciprocationg pumps have been designed to provide reliability for a wide range of conventional power applications, as well as for its markets of upstream oil, downstream oil, nuclear power, water and industrial, minerals and mining, and offshore and marine.
manufacturing that is forced to reduce the profit margins to take orders and fill shop capacity,” he says. “Manufacturing in low cost countries results in longer delivery cycles to get the equipment to the USA market. A limited number of high quality foundries in the USA results in delays to project timetables and an inability to obtain castings within a reasonable time frame. Pump manufacturing cycles will increase as a result of this situation.” ClydeUnion API code OH2 and BB2 pumps are used the most in refinery applications and are used in all processes within the refinery requiring a medium pressure and flow rate (Figure 4). API code BB3 pumps
“ITT is one of the top three suppliers of pump systems used by the USA oil and gas industry to transport and refine petroleum,” says John Bailey, global product marketing manager for ITT Goulds Pumps. “We also are a supplier of valves, offshore desalination equipment, pump systems controls and monitoring solutions.” The more interesting applications are associated with the company’s larger pumps. The BB3 (Figures 7, 8 and 9) and BB5 pumps, for example, are used in refinery applications, water injection services for oil drilling, special pipeline applications, boiler feed water services for power generation, and many other high-pressure applications. “It’s been an excellent year for ITT. In fact, 2011 will be a near-record year that will go a long way to erase the declines that our company experienced in the recent recession,” Bailey says. “We are tremendously proud of our ability to respond to customers in terms of product quality, timely delivery and efficient service.
“Specific to the oil and gas market, ClydeUnion Pumps manufacturers centrifugal, power, steam driven reciprocating pumps and aftermarket service and parts for both the onshore and offshore market segments,” says Chadwick E Tuttle, COO Americas, ClydeUnion Pumps. “We are a full range manufacturer and systems packager of both API 610 and API 674 pumps, providing aftermarket service for replacement parts and repairs for the oil and gas onshore and offshore markets. The equipment is used in applications across refineries, petrochemical plants, offshore oil platforms and pipelines.” Tuttle mentions that lower price and shorter delivery are the biggest challenges in the oil and gas market in the USA: “Cost is always being driven down. This means a serious challenge for USA and Canadian based www.worldpumps.com
Figure 7. Oil and gas is the largest market served by ITT Goulds Pumps. The ITT Goulds Pumps model 3600 (BB3), shown here in a water injection service, is in common use in petroleum refineries throughout the USA.
30
Feature WORLD PUMPS
February 2012
Figure 8. The ITT Goulds Pumps model 3600 (BB3) is an extremely reliable, high-performance pump well suited to a wide range of services in oil production, refining, pipeline usage and power generation.
One of our chief goals is to help customers maximize their process uptime – not just selling them the right products, but helping them to use our equipment efficiently and effectively as part of complete solutions.”
GE Oil & Gas GE has achieved significant success in the USA with the Transcanada pipeline (3,400 km) and Corridor pipeline projects – SNC Lavalin (450 km), and is continuing to play in the pipeline segment.
"With one-third of the world’s centrifugal API pump market, the USA presents great opportunities for future growth," says Francesco Falco, business leader for pumps, valves and systems for GE Oil & Gas. "We continue to invest in new technologies that will enable us to expand our presence in key segments in the USA market, such as upstream and oil sands." GE's oil & gas product line spans the entire oil and gas value chain, so it is able to integrate systems and provide customers
with what it says are ‘unique and tailored packages’ to optimize its production. Integral to the system is GE’s new DDHF CO2 pump, an optimized solution enabling customers to realize power savings as well as highly flexible performance upgrades. Based on GE’s hydraulic design, the enhanced DDHF is a multistage centrifugal pump specially re-engineered for CO2 pumping and EOR, delivering 540 bar discharge pressure — claimed to be the highest ever provided by a centrifugal pump in CO2 applications. GE Oil & Gas invests 4% of its revenue into research and development annually, much of it for upstream and renewable energy applications, such as water and CO2 reinjection. The company is also developing a full range of high performance, integrally geared, centrifugal, twin-screw and hybrid pumps for offshore applications. "We are growing year over year with annual growth rate of 30%. Our localization efforts, investment in technology, and partnership with customers are paying dividends for us in the USA market," Francesco Falco says. "We have a small but growing share of this market. Unconventional gas in the USA will increase the number of gas treatment facilities, therefore there will be a huge opportunity for our pump business in processes that require pumping products." ■
Contact
Figure 9. This ITT Goulds Pumps model 3620 (BB2) supports boiler feedwater service in a refinery. The pump is in wide use in petroleum refining, production, and distribution. www.worldpumps.com
Keith Loria Freelance writer Tel: 914-834-4041 Email: [email protected]