Awarded Orders

ABLE Instruments & Controls Ltd were contracted by Bechtel International to supply a diverse package of workshop and field calibration equipment ranging from handheld manometers to portable dew point monitors and encompassing loop calibrators and potable water test kits.

Following final approval in 2015, development of the first project, involving the Taurus and Libra fields, was fast-tracked to enable delivery of an annual average of more than 600 million standard cubic feet of gas a day (mmscf/d) to the Egyptian national gas grid. The fields are currently producing more than 700mmscf/d sales gas and 1000 barrels per day (bbls/d) condensate which is 20% higher than the planned sales gas plateau.

The Taurus and Libra project is a subsea greenfield development including nine wells (six in Taurus and three in Libra) and a 42 kilometre tie back to the existing onshore processing facility where gas enters the Egyptian national gas grid via a nearby export pipeline.

This is the second of seven major upstream projects that BP expects to come into production during 2017. Together with the projects that began production in 2016, these new start-ups are expected to provide BP with 500,000 barrels equivalent a day (boe/d) of new production capacity by the end of this year. With further new projects starting up beyond this, by the end of the decade BP’s new projects are expected to have added 800,000 boe/d of new production.

The nearest residential properties are just under 300m away to the east and persistent complaints regarding the characteristic “bad egg” odour associated with hydrogen sulphide (H2S) pervading the local neighbourhood lead to threats of prosecution from the Surrey Heath Borough Council. Consequently, in order effect rapid detection and elimination of these odours, Thames Water have procured from ABLE Instruments several of the venerated Jerome J605 H2S Analysers in environmental housings for fixed point monitoring as previously, successfully implemented at Thames’ Mogden and Acton STW sites.

The analyser systems have been located at the site perimeter and in key process areas such as aeration lanes and around settlement tanks. As opposed to a hard-wired interface with the site SCADA system, Thames Water have deployed Isodaq’s Frog Loggers for capture and wireless transmission of the data from the Jeromes. This will be monitored by the Innovations and Compliance teams.

WMTFG recently undertook a detailed study of the spallation* rates of their peristaltic pump tubing materials for which they required analysis of small volume samples for particle size, shape and concentration. ABLE proposed the Canty PHARMAFLOW Particle Sizing System for continuous sampling in-line with microscopic non-destructive viewing. The PHARMAFLOW provides particle size analysis with two dimensional results when used in conjunction with the CantyVisionClient Software. The vision system, with integral lighting, features precision optics designed to enhance the image prior to display or analysis. The image sensor is a high resolution / high speed CCD camera coupled to a microscopic lens arrangement.

The PHARMAFLOW successfully delivered the detailed level of analysis required for WMTFG to complete their assessment of the spallation process and once again demonstrated the significant advantages of the process vision technology over the conventional laser diffraction technique.

Project History

The Bahamas-flagged Tina Very Large Crude Carrier was selected by SBM Offshore for the Liza conversion. The FPSO is designed to produce up to 120,000 barrels of oil per day with associated gas treatment capacity of circa 170 million cubic feet per day and water injection capacity of approximately 200,000 barrels per day.

The Liza field is located in the Stabroek block, which covers almost 27,000 square kilometres, about 200 kilometres offshore Guyana. ExxonMobil affiliate Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Ltd. is the operator and holds 45% interest in the Stabroek block. Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd. holds a 30% interest and CNOOC Nexen Petroleum Guyana Ltd. holds a 25% interest.

Because it is very easy for workers to be exposed to benzene and mercury vapour, portability is a vital factor in preserving their safety. Analysers that can be easily carried from place to place on an offshore rig provide employees with the ability to self-monitor their surroundings.

An added complication with mercury is its tendency to form amalgams with several metals, particularly aluminium, which leads to liquid metal embrittlement (LME). This can affect pipeline welds, cryogenic components, aluminium heat exchangers and hydrogenation catalysts. Failure of these components can lead to a plant shutdown with severe economic implications.

In order to ensure maximum protection for personnel when breaking open vessels and hydrocarbon lines, Total purchased several Jerome 405 Mercury Vapour Analysers and UltraRAE 3000 Benzene Monitors from ABLE via our 247able E-commerce platform.
The high specificity of the Jerome’s Gold Film Sensor technology precludes the possibility of erroneous readings from common interferents such as water vapour and measurements down to 0.5ug/m3 are easily achievable.

The UltraRAE 3000 is the most advanced Compound-Specific Monitor on the market. Its Photoionization Detector’s (PID) extended range of 0.05 to 10,000 ppm in VOC mode and 50 ppb to 200 ppm in benzene-specific mode makes it ideal for the application in question.

Due to certain intrinsic properties, the transition metal mercury can be used to separate gold from other materials. Mercury readily forms alloys with other metals called amalgams and is amalgamated with gold to facilitate the recovery of gold from its ores. To recover gold from the 50% mercury and 50% gold amalgam, it is heated to evaporate the mercury, leaving the gold behind.

Any of the four stages of the small-scale gold production process release mercury into the environment and it is well known that mercury is highly toxic, causing damage to the nervous system at even relatively low levels of exposure.

When it came to protecting its personnel in the Gold Room by monitoring the mercury hazard, Koza knew that the only instrument that could provide the low level detection capability, the speed of response and specificity required to deliver a viable measurement was the Jerome 405 Gold Film Mercury Vapour Analyser. Koza therefore approached ABLE Instruments in this regard. ABLE put forward a fixed point monitoring solution with the Jerome housed in an environmental enclosure with local display and external beacons for visual alarm indication.