Amec Foster Wheeler near completion of BP refrigeration plant

Amec Foster Wheeler announces today that work is nearing completion on a new refrigeration plant at BP’s Grangemouth site that will help maintain operations across the Forties Pipeline System.

Amec Foster Wheeler is providing engineering, installation, project, construction and supply chain management services for the Kinneil Liquid Petroleum Gas (KLPG) Chilldown Project located at BP’s Refrigerated Liquid Petroleum Gas (RLPG) site in Grangemouth, Scotland. Amec Foster Wheeler’s completions and commissioning specialist, qedi, is providing commissioning support for the project.

“We are proud to deliver this project for BP using our leading brownfield and onshore engineering experience and expertise,” Jim Lenton, Amec Foster Wheeler’s Interim President Northern Europe and CIS said. “We have been working with BP at Grangemouth since the 1970s and we are delighted to have been a part of an impressive collaboration to successfully maintain the efficiency of the Forties Pipeline System."

The RLPG plant currently operates with R22, a colorless, refrigerant gas. EU legislation requires the replacement of R22 and Amec Foster Wheeler provided the conceptual design study identifying R410a as a suitable more environmentally friendly and efficient replacement refrigerant. Refrigeration is required to chill the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) to enable storage and eventual transportation by ship to market. Without refrigeration, the Forties Pipeline System would be unable to operate.

Fife-based Burntisland Fabrications (BiFab) handled the bulk of the fabrication work for the project, building the six pre-assembled units (PAUs) that will form the core of the new plant. These were transported to the RLPG site from BiFab’s Burntisland base along the River Forth, making an impressive sight as they passed under the Forth bridges. The PAUs – each weighing over 100 tonnes – have now been installed on site. Also complete is the installation of pre-assembled racks (PARs), also constructed by BiFab, for hydrocarbon pipework connections to the existing plant.

Hook-up and commissioning of the plant is now well under way with the plant expected to be operational in summer 2017.

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