Oman LNG and Baker Hughes to undertake major debottlenecking project

Business Sunday 23/February/2020 16:36 PM
By: Times News Service
Oman LNG and Baker Hughes to undertake major debottlenecking project

Muscat: Baker Hughes Company and Oman LNG participated in a signing ceremony at Baker Hughes’ 2020 Annual Meeting in Florence, Italy, the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) for the turbomachinery scope of the bebottlenecking project. The project will increase Oman LNG production capacity by 10 per cent to 11.4 MMTPA.
Debottlenecking is defined as the process of highlighting specific areas in production trains, machinery equipment or the workflow configuration that would limit or constrain the flow of product inside the plant. By optimising plant operations, overall capacity can be raised further. The debottlenecking project comes as part of Oman LNG’s far-sighted strategic projects that will boost its efficiency.
"This project truly exemplifies the value of legacy partnerships. The opportunity for this seminal debottlenecking project grew from our more than 16-year relationship serving Oman LNG’s turbomachinery fleet with our equipment and employing top-of-the-line LNG technology and solutions,” said Mokthar Fawaz, Vice President MENATI, Turbomachinery & Process Solutions, Baker Hughes.
Under the terms of the deal, Baker Hughes will supply the new helper motors, variable-frequency drives and deliver the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) for the said project scope. FEED was completed in 2019 and awarded to Baker Hughes in Q4 2019. The project will be executed over the next two years, with the first train completion by the end of 2020, followed by the second LNG train in 2021, and the third LNG train by 2022.
The current energy landscape is ever-challenging, requiring energy companies to adopt the most efficient practices to remain reliable and agile suppliers to customers. Oman LNG provides cleaner and efficient LNG to customers while yielding greater contributions to the Sultanate’s socio-economic fabric.
“To accommodate additional feed gas, Oman LNG has implemented a number of key activities and projects to boost its plant efficiency and increase the LNG output. The ambitious debottlenecking project is very important for our company. We have partnered in this initiative with organisations such as Baker Hughes as they have proper execution, integration and ensure flawless project delivery while sharing similar safety values as ours,” said Harib Al Kitani, CEO of Oman LNG.
As the original equipment manufacturer of the debottlenecking equipment in the three LNG trains, Baker Hughes was selected by Oman LNG for the debottlenecking project to minimise execution risks and build upon the 16-year relationship between the two companies. Baker Hughes has serviced the plant's turbomachinery fleet in the region under a global contractual services agreement since 2004.