The Umm Shaif field is a giant oil and gas field (capable of as much as 600 000 barrels of oil per day), and has been producing since 1962. Gas has been produced from the field since the early 80s, and, recently, field owners Adma Opco [Adma Operating Company] chose to boost the field’s gas production and injection capacity. In order to avoid interconnection issues between the three platforms needed, Adma Opco sought one company that could undertake the whole project.
Hyundai Heavy Industries [HHI] won the full contract for engineering, procurement and construction of Adma Opco’s three new Umm Shaif platforms for collection and separation, gas compression and accommodation. This was the first project awarded by the United Arab Emirates entirely to a foreign company, and signified a major step for HHI as a turnkey supplier of such large and complex systems.
“This is just an enormous project, and demands a large amount of skilled manpower and complex engineering. Among other things, the field’s high sulphur gas content meant that all materials need to be wholly inconel, an alloy of chrome, iron and nickel. It resists corrosion, but it’s probably ten times more expensive than more conventional materials,” said DH Jung, the deputy general manager in HHI’s offshore purchasing department responsible for all procurement on the Umm Shaif project.
HHI signed the contract with Aker Solutions in 2007 for the engineering and supply of three almost wholly inconel skids that, once assembled, would make up a 2 000 tonne gas dehydration and compression unit.
Jung added: “We had to be very selective choosing partners on this project. Technical capability, project management, financial strength and a competitive bid were all strong factors in our decision. Aker Solutions demonstrated its ability to do all of this. They did a great job. Any delay in procurement or production would have been disastrous, and Aker Solutions’ timely and accurate engineering and supply kept the project on track. Their ability to coordinate and follow up fabrication here in Korea was critical.”
Linking engineers in France with builders in Korea
Though HHI has a long record supplying complex offshore deliveries (it is a world leader in FPSO construction, for example), this contract’s size and complexity brought special demands. Further, HHI and Aker Solutions had co-operated many times before, but this project would require a new level of co-operation and coordination.
The Gas Dehydration unit consists of a high pressure
absorber and a glycol regeneration package split into
three skids. This image shows one of the three skids
housing the reboiler unit and associated items.
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Because of the tremendous weight of the three inconel skids (flash separation, surge drum and gas compression), HHI requested that they be fabricated locally. Otherwise, it would add a thorny transportation issue to an already complex project.
“Aker Solutions has worked on numerous projects with HHI and other Korean yards before, but this was different. We would have to make a large and complicated delivery, working with an unfamiliar fabricator and co-operating across continents and languages. It was a challenge, but I think we managed it well,” said Waintraub.
Aker Solutions selected Sung Jin Geotec to undertake fabrication of the gas dehydration skids. HHI had introduced the two companies; Sung Jin is immediately adjacent to HHI’s yard and had supplied it frequently on large offshore projects. Aker Solutions knew the fabricator to have previously supplied French energy major Total, one of Aker Solutions’ long-standing partners. |
To help coordinate the work done by engineers in France and the client and fabrication yard in Korea, Aker Solutions brought in a key asset with experience in both countries. Hannah Lim started her work on the Umm Shaif project in France, where she was a document controller and project assistant in the engineering phase. Once procurement and fabrication began, she was on site in Korea to facilitate communication and ensure the fabrication complied with drawings and requirements. Lim’s presence on-site enabled a flexible work schedule and expedited the delivery time.
“Technically, Sung Jin had plenty of experience. But they had little experience working for foreign clients. My role was simply to expedite understanding and thus avoid any unnecessary problems,” said Lim.
In addition to Lim, Aker Solutions’ project manager Philippe Thomas made monthly trips to Korea to visit HHI and Sung Jin, and an Aker Solutions package engineer was on-site throughout much of the project to assist in procurement and the detailed design.
A contract under pressure
“Nobody really expected us to be able to deliver this on time,” said Jung. “And with a delivery time in May, missing the deadline by just a few weeks would mean a delay of many months, with Korea’s monsoon going from June to October.
“Part of the reason no one thought we could do this was the high inconel content of the packages. Another was the demanding nature of the client. This whole project meant a great amount of risk-taking from HHI. But we knew what we were doing, and we’ve been able to move fast with lots of technical manpower and good decisions.”
Jung describes how HHI grabbed the EPC contract from Adma Opco and ran with it. As soon as Worley in Kuala Lumpur was done with the FEED (Front End Engineering and Design), HHI took the drawings and started its execution. “We just couldn’t wait for them,” said Jung.
The reason for Jung’s and HHI’s haste was down to the market pressures of 2007. This was the midst of an oil and gas contracting boom, and raw material prices were high and rising, with great fluctuation. HHI would need to complete engineering and make purchase orders as quickly as possible. “The difference between ordering an item before December 2007 and after could mean a difference in delivery time of 22 weeks, and a wild price hike,” he said.
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The Umm Shaif sail out in Ulsan, South Korea, now
located in the Arabian Gulf.
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Said Lionel Waintraub: “The price for these sophisticated metals was changing basically every day. We had to focus when making orders to write very good contracts that would mitigate our risk to price fluctuations. This we managed, and, with the end client’s clear specifications, we were able to procure all of the materials quickly and with little error.”
OG Kim, mechanical lead engineer for HHI on this project, was impressed: “This project required a tremendous amount of engineering capacity, and Aker Solutions gave us their full capability. They helped us to make this successful delivery.”
Commissioning
HHI’s platforms were completed on time in 2009, and are currently on location in the Arabian Gulf undergoing final commissioning. The gas facilities will be on stream by March, according to plan, with an expected production of 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day going to Das Island for LNG production shortly thereafter.
“This was a key delivery for us, and – by demonstrating our ability to combine engineering in France with fabrication in Korea – we have earned the possibility of participating in many new projects. Korean yards like HHI are demonstrating their ability to deliver very large and complex turn-key systems to new markets, like the Arabian Gulf. We’ll be staying close to them,” said Chantal Rigaill, Managing Director of Aker Solutions’ process systems company in France.
Gas Dehydration Systems are designed to remove dissolved water from wet saturated gas and meet dew point specifications down to 1 ppm. The glycol regeneration part enables high energy recovery and low glycol degradation.
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