Pre-Commissioning Services

Whether it’s pre-commissioning of a pipeline, an oil or gas installation, we offer a complete integrated range of services designed to minimise on-site personnel requirements and reduce the duration of required activities and minimise costs.

A key aspect of a successful pre-commissioning activity is to start the project planning early, even integrating at the design stage where our engineers can provide solutions which can have significant time and cost savings. Whether it’s the responsibility of the owner or the main contractor, the pre-commissioning operation is critical to the plant or pipeline project being RFC, signed off and being fit-for-purpose.

Our experience in integrated pre-commissioning services includes: Pre-engineering, flooding, cleaning, pigging, gauging, testing, drying, preservation and inerting activities. One team, one contractor, one point of responsibility and accountability. Many clients have found our experience to be beneficial, from initial planning, through to execution, whether it’s a new build or an expansion project.

Turnaround services

Turnarounds/shutdowns are a stressful time for all site personnel whether it’s a refinery or Oil & Gas process plant. Our engineers and planning personnel are on hand to work together with the plant’s turnaround team during the planning phase to assist in minimising problems and provide solutions. Our services are designed to reduce downtime and increase safety. For example, our high volume nitrogen purging equipment and services were developed together with our clients to meet their specific needs. We are now able to save several days on a typical plant shutdown.

Apart from high volume nitrogen purging to gas free the plant, our project teams go to work decoking & UT inspection of fired heater tubes, hydrostatic & pneumatic pressure testing of plant/vessels, enhanced cooling of reactors, pipeline pigging/cleaning/flushing and many more.

Once the mechanical work is complete, we also assist with another high volume nitrogen purge to remove air/oxygen from the system to ensure a safe start-up. Also drying process plant & lines using super-dry air and/or nitrogen, we can achieve  -60⁰C dewpoint if required. Our project personnel are always available to discuss ways of how we can save time during your turnaround and improve safety.

Inspection services

Intelligent Pigging of Pipelines

An intelligent pig survey enables the operator responsible for the integrity of the pipeline, to assess the failure risk due to metal loss corrosion using the findings of the inspection survey including internal geometry and distance. However, depending on their physical characteristics and product service, not all pipelines can be inspected using intelligent pig technology. Our in-house developed Ultrasonic Inline Inspection (ILI) tool was designed specifically for inspecting “difficult to pig” product pipelines with diameters ranging from 3 to 56 inch.

These “difficult to pig”  pipeline systems are usually found in process plants, tank farms, import/export terminals, airports and similar installations. They are typically lines that were never designed for pigging or intelligent pigging and most don’t have conventional pigging facilities such as pig traps. They may also have unbarred equal tees, complex bends, mitre bends and bends of less than 1.5D radius.  Our specially designed tools are the perfect solution for the inspection of non-piggable pipelines, we also keep in stock locally produced portable PER certified pig traps for those lines which were never designed to be pigged or inspected.

Intelligent Pigging of Fired Heaters

The tubes of fired heaters (or furnaces) in refineries & petrochemical plants are traditionally very difficult to inspect by conventional wall thickness measuring instruments. Our purpose designed and built IFI (Intelligent Furnace Inspection) pigs are intelligent free-swimming tools capable of (UT) Ultrasonic Inspection of the system tubes and bends of a furnace, with a minimum impact on shutdown time. The inspection system is capable of storing raw A-Scan data and providing a full C-scan of the furnace and reactor tubes giving hi-resolution data on both internal and external metal loss due to erosion or corrosion.

UT Push-Pull Intelligent Pigging

The Push-Pull Pig is an intelligent, versatile tool that combines the features of a tethered inline inspection system with the advantages of a standard push-pull camera inspection system. The compact, lightweight, modular design of the Push-pull ILI tool adds to the agility of this tool. The combination of the pushrod’s ability to provide the required propulsion, power supply and data transfer, delivers a user-friendly, high performance ultrasonic inspection of branch pipelines with all results presented online.This tool is specifically designed for full high definition UT inspection of unpiggable lines such as transfer lines, certain types of reactor tubes, airport fuelling systems and similar lines.

Tank farms

Legislation dictates that hydrocarbon storage tanks have to be inspected, many tanks also need to be cleaned to remove sludge as many liquids tends to separate into components of differing densities. Sludge that sinks to the tank bottom is a combination of hydrocarbons, gas, sediments, sands and water. When sludge builds up inside a tank, it reduces the storage capacity and the installation’s ability to function properly – and that reduces profits. Sludge not only reduces storage capacity but also accelerates corrosion, disrupts maintenance operations, and causes damage when landing the tank roof.

Tank Contents Profiling

The online tank sludge profiler uses an acoustic sensor capable of scanning tank contents with the greatest precision. After scanning the tank, we process the data we have gathered to calculate sludge volume and generate three-dimensional views of sludge distribution. Our survey system measures the tank sludge volume with an accuracy of up to 95%. Based on information describing the sludge properties and distribution, we can determine the best strategy to desludge and inspect your tank. Accurate tank profiling leaves you with no doubt about whether to invest further in desludging, inspection or maintenance projects.

On-line Tank Floor Inspection

Projects involving human presence increase safety and environmental risks. Traditional tank bottom inspection technologies require tanks to be offline during inspection. They must be drained, cleaned, degassed and ventilated – all of which cost the tank owners considerable revenues. By using our OTIS robot (ATEX Approved), the tank bottom inspection takes significantly less time. The OTIS robotic tank bottom inspector series allows for inspection according to the API 653 standards while your tank remains online

On-line Tank Cleaning

As HSE requirements become more strict, man entry of tanks has become undesirable and sometime even prohibited. Our tank cleaning service overcomes these issues as cleaning is carried out on-line with no man entry requirements. The service uses remotely operated washing cannons that can be fitted through the man doors on the tank roof or if the tank is drained, through the side man doors. Using a specifically engineered cleaning plan for each tank which ensures that all product, sludge or wax is removed. Depending upon the tank’s service we then purge the tank with nitrogen or air to ensure safe man entry for qualified tank inspectors.

Plant services

Refineries, Petrochemical, LPG, LNG, Gas Plants, Utilities

Maintenance and upgrades of process plants are part of the normal cycle of life for industries. Our service engineers and planning personnel work together with the Client’s team to assist in designing solutions for the upcoming work scope. Our range of maintenance and commissioning services are there to reduce costs and improve safety during this period. By having a turnkey approach to these services, the number of on-site personnel is greatly reduced and a single point of contact for several pre-commissioning services saves time, costs and accountability is significantly more manageable.

De-commissioning services

When process plants and pipelines reach the end of their useful life or become redundant, it is necessary to de-commission them to make safe for demolition or for mothballing for potential further use or change of duty.

The de-commissioning process will depend on previous use and future requirements. Our personnel can assist in the planning and de-commissioning services as required below:

Decommissioning programmes will comprise some or all the below:

For pipelines

Initial pigging to remove bulk product (using nitrogen if product is hydrocarbon based or flammable).

• Cleaning, mechanical (pigging) and/or chemical to remove residual products.
• Drying & inerting with nitrogen to prevent further deterioration.
• Inhibitors (vapour phase types) for systems requiring mothballing.
• Removal and storage of pumps/compressors etc.
• Scrapping the line or fill with fly ash / cement.

For process plants:

• Removal of bulk hazardous / flammable liquids and vapours using nitrogen.
• Chemical and / or mechanical cleaning to remove residual products.
• Remove pumps / compressors, reusable items for storage, re-sale.
• Scrap unusable equipment.
• For mothballing: dry, inert & inhibit to prevent further deterioration.