Dutch company Fugro has been awarded a five year maitenance contract by supermajor Shell for the Pearl gas-to-liquids facility in Ras Laffan, Qatar.

Under the contract Fugro will provide round the clock support and maintenance of the seabed water temperature monitoring system for the five year term of the contract.
 
Fugro will provide an experienced metocean engineer as well as critical upgrades to the weather monitor software, while local 24-hour support in Qatar will be provided by trained engineers from associate company Petrotec.
 
The monitoring system was designed and installed by Fugro and provides real time data to help minimise flow assurance problems in pipelines which link the two offshore platforms to the onshore plant.
 
The monitoring system sends data from the seabed to the platforms and the system interfaces in real-time with the platform’s control system.
 
When the seabed water temperature reaches a specified level, an alarm is triggered so that action can be taken to manage and maintain the flow of gas through the pipelines.
 
“Monitoring the seabed water temperature has contributed to maintaining a steady flow of feed gas from the offshore platforms to the onshore facility,” said the director of Fugro Geos’ offshore systems division, Anthony Gaffney.
 
“The ability to accurately measure the water temperature along the export pipelines and identify when kinetic hydrate inhibitors are needed eliminates the need to purchase, transport, store, pump and then remove the inhibitors and this translates into cost savings.”
 
The Pearl GTL project involves the export of gas under pressure from two unmanned platforms over a distance of about 60 kilometres the giant onshore plant in Ras Laffan.
 
The project is a joint development between Shell and state-owned Qatar Petroleum.

Source: Upstream Online