The LNG
Toolbox – How Modular Plant Design Brings Tomorrow's Fuel into Reach
Liquefied gas
could become the fuel of the future — but its handling, storage and
liquefaction demands elaborate process plant. Now, gas specialist Linde
introduces a modular concept for LNG liquefaction in small and medium size.
Their vision: The liquefaction toolbox for plan engineers … — Construction Kits
for LPG production
Plant
engineers are caught between extremes: While mega-plants in Asia or along the
US Gulf Coast can not be big enough, customers in fine and specialty chemicals,
but also in oil and gas production call for fast, cheap and flexible solutions.
This puts
plant construction in an uneasy situation, as western companies already have
are hard time competing with low-cost players from Asia. Let’s face it:
Engineering is a personnel-intensive business. From design via development down
to construction, no two plants are alike. Therefore, the idea of assembling
complex production lines from a set of pre-build modules has a huge appeal.
Package unit integration: how do you assemble a modular
system?—Package units, modular system design and process skids are hot topics
at the moment. Thinking in systems is becoming a familiar soundbite in the component
manufacturing and chemical industries, but the building block approach is not
making as much headway as had been expected. Interfaces to existing automation
and control systems are lacking.
Especially in oil and gas industries, quite often the remote
location of wells and sites calls for autonomous, flexible and complete turnkey
solutions. From process skids via package units to modular engineering concepts
like readymade 3D-CAD models, modularization can save up to 15 % of engineering
costs, studies show. Already today, oil companies and natural gas producers
rely on pre-assembled compressor skids or chemical injection modules. But the
vision goes even further: What if a complete production plant could be put
together from compact modular building blocks, just like a set of Lego bricks?
For this purpose, gas specialist Linde, a company with some
experience in modular air separation units, has launched an initiative for
standardized LPG-processing plants. In 2010, the company assembled a core team
and spent more than 25,000 engineering hours to develop the modular LNG
liquefaction. Their aim: To supply high quality plants at a low price in
shorter times than individually designed LPG-units. Although the recent figures
for natural gas present a mixed picture, the big plans for LNG export terminals
in the US in the wake of the shale gas boom present a huge market potential.
Individual or Pre-Assembled?
But Linde has bigger plans: The company wants to tap into the
merchant LNG market, where LNG is used as a transport fuel. Especially as
shipping regulations are becoming increasingly stringent, the threshold for
sulphur levels in fuel have been limited from 1.5 % to 0.1 % by 2015. This
development makes clean LNG a valuable alternative shipping fuel, as it produces
round 90 % less sulphur oxide and 80 % less nitrogen oxide during combustion,
as well as significantly less CO2. Already in 2012, Linde’s Swedish
subsidiary AGA Gas signed delivery agreement with Viking Line for LNG to power
Viking’s new cruise ship
http://www.process-worldwide.com/plant-projects-and-engineering/articles/511736/?cmp=nl-206
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