ABB technology increases productivity at oil tank farm in the Middle East

Vopak Horizon Fujairah caters to blending, break-bulk and consolidation of petroleum products. Strategically located at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz on the eastern side of UAE outside the Gulf, the company is the leading storage and handling service provider for petroleum products in Fujairah.

The proximity of the crude oil pipeline that links Habshan oil field in Abu Dhabi to Fujairah underlines the strategic importance of the location at the Strait of Hormuz, world's most sensitive choke points.

Vopak Horizon Fujairah services include receipt of oil from and delivery to ships, homogenizing, additivation, inter-tank transfers, pipeline transfers to neighboring terminals and ship-to-ship transfers. The operation of the tank farm is critical and demands minimum downtime due to high operational costs.

IGBT technology reduces harmonics in the network

ABB has been associated with Vopak Horizon Fujairah since 1998 and has since then ensured the reliable operation of 50 pumps at the tank farm by a complete engineered multi-drive solution along with non-sparking motors and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) for the process control.

Through ABB's leading edge drives technology the customer increases productivity and efficiency of the pumps. Latest ISU (IGBT Insulated gate bipolar transistor) based supply units were added to the existing diode supply unit (DSU). The expansion enabled the terminal to operate more pumps on demand with a total power consumption capacity of 8.7MW. Earlier this was limited to 3MW with diode supply units.

The IGBT based system helps additionally to reduce the system harmonics level from 30% to 4%. This eliminates distortion in the electricity network and improves the power factor near to unity which is improving system stability and efficiency.

"We rely on IGBT technology to improve the overall efficiency of our pumps since the demand for quick oil handling and continuously increasing pace of productivity is essential for the success of our business. We doubled the capacity of an existing substation using ABB drives, enabling an improved productivity of the connected pumping station", says Mr. Christiaan van Nielen, Terminal Manager, Vopak Horizon Fujairah.

Preventive maintenance reduces costs

Furthermore, the scope of ABB supply includes a preventive maintenance contract consisting of periodical preventive maintenance checks, availability of 24/7 emergency call center service, training, reconditioning and repair services, legacy product support and parts management support. With a preventive maintenance contract, the risk of interruptions in plant productivity and maintenance costs are minimized, which contributes to the overall increase the uptime of the oil pumping infrastructure.