Project Profile
Value: US$18 million
Location: 200km offshore of Abu Dhabi, UAE
Estimated reserves: 50 billion barrels of oil
Diesel generators: 13.8kV
Part of ZADCO’s Satah oilfield, situated 200km offshore of Abu Dhabi, Arzanah Island has water injection facilities as well as utility and accommodation loads and requires around 3.5 to 4 megawatts of power. As natural gas is not available on the island, power turbines are operated on liquid fuel (diesel). To reduce fuel consumption, ZADCO had replaced some of its turbines with high speed diesel generators. The high speed generators proved to be more fuel efficient but operated with recurring problems and occasional major breakdowns.
In 2001, ZADCO installed three Diesel Generator (DG) sets with the objective of phasing out the old Gas Turbine Generators. Within a few months of commissioning the diesel generator sets there had been major failures in all three. These failures have caused a major concern about plant and personnel safety and resulted in a very high cost due to repair and down time. ZADCO is now envisaging replacing the existing DG sets and RGTs with new diesel generator sets of higher suitable rating and operational reliability. Mott MacDonald Abu Dhabi have been appointed as consultant to find out the probable causes of repetitive failure of DG sets and to carry out Transient Stability studies for selecting cost effective reliable diesel generators meeting ZADCO site requirements.
Operators:
Zakum Development Company (ZADCO): Operator with 100% interest
Contractors:
Mott MacDonald: FEED contract
Xodus Group: Contract for the vibration assessment and analysis on the oil train piping and structures for Zakum Development Company (ZADCO) at Zirku Island, 140km north-west of Abu Dhabi. The work, valued at over US$600,000, will pull in services from Xodus’ process, piping, instrumentation and structural teams. The 24-week project will include a Front End Engineering Design (FEED) scope of work. With its advanced oil and gas installations, Zirku is considered the main industrial base for the processing, storage and export of oil from the Upper Zakum, Umm Al-Dalkh and Satah fields. The company secured a three-year contract to deliver rotating machinery condition monitoring services with rotating machinery vibration analysis and risk management.