Offshore staff
FLORENCE, Italy – Petrofac Emirates has contracted GE Oil & Gas to provide a turnkey turbomachinery solution for ZADCO’s Upper Zakum UZ750 development offshore Abu Dhabi.
This will comprise large, “plug-and-play” power generation modules which will be shipped from GE’s construction complex in Avenza, Italy, to one of the artificial islands, 50 mi (80.4 km) offshoreAbu Dhabi. Each module, incorporating a 43-MW, GE 6B gas turbine, will weigh more than 1,500 tons and will be 44 m (144 ft) long, 20 m (65.6 ft) wide, and 24 m (78.7 ft) high.
The six modules will house a turbogenerator train that will provide electric power to ZADCO’s oil production facilities, including pumps and gas compressors. The modules will be assembled, commissioned, and tested ahead of delivery so that on arrival, they can be installed quickly, and ready for operation.
Recently GE supplied a similar module design (five systems) forChevron’s Gorgon field offshore Western Australia. GE says the combination of the design and the enhanced testing reduces the total footprint of operations, and also the time between equipment delivery and startup of operation.
To support the ZADCO project, GE has committed $12 million to expand the Avenza yard by adding more assembly and testing capabilities, due to be in place by the end of 2014. At that point the module construction yard will cover 140,000 sq m (1.5 million sq ft), four times its original 40,000-sq m (430,556-sq ft) size in 2011.
The finished yard will have enough platform foundations to assemble 10 modules at the same time.
Assembly of the ZADCO modules will start at the end of the year; all should be completed and delivered to Abu Dhabi by around mid-2016.
01/28/2014
