Full steam ahead
  from: Asian Oil & Gas
  Thursday, June 12, 2008

Specialist engineering company Peter Brotherhood continues its winning ways, landing an order for the record-setting turbines on a West African FPSO within weeks of delivering the gensets for the first of Aker’s new ‘smart’ vessels due to go into service soon offshore India.

UK-based Peter Brotherhood knows a thing or three about powering up FPSOs, having designed and manufactured steam turbine driven generator sets for them since 1981 for a variety of offshore destinations including West Africa, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Australia and the North Sea.

Most recently Fred Olsen Production asked the company to supply two condensing steam turbine driven generator sets for the Knock Allan FPSO for the Olowi field offshore Gabon. These turbines are reckoned to be the most powerful yet installed on an FPSO. Each of the two 27MW sets consists of a turbine, gearbox and generator, mounted on a common bedplate which incorporates the oil system. The turbines will accept steam from gas-fired boilers on the vessel and will exhaust to a separate condenser, also supplied by Peter Brotherhood.

The two steam turbine driven generator sets were recently tested on steam at the company’s UK manufacturing facility preparatory for being delivered to Dubai Drydocks for installation on the top deck of the Knock Allan, with engineers from Peter Brotherhood handling the onboard commissioning.

Following its conversion from a trading tanker by Dubai Drydocks, the FPSO will have an oil storage capacity of 1 million barrels and will be able to produce 22,000b/d.

Peter Brotherhood’s managing director Stephen Fitzpatrick says Fred Olsen chose his company because of its extensive experience in manufacturing gensets for installation on such vessels and the sets’ ability to handle the pitch and roll of the FPSO environment. ‘Winning this order has strengthened the company's position as a world-class supplier of steam turbines for FPSO vessels worldwide,’ he adds.

Meanwhile, the company’s recent deliveries include three 5MW steam turbine driven generator sets to Norway’s Aker Floating Production. They have been installed on the top deck of the Aker Smart 1 FPSO which will operate in the Indian Ocean and be maintained by Aker Borgestad Operations.

Aker Smart 1 is being deployed in a hurry on operator Reliance Industries’ MA-field, some 60km off the Indian east coast, where the water depths range from 1000m to 1400m. Oil production is scheduled in the first half of 2008 and gas by the end of the year.

The three generator sets each consist of a turbine, gearbox and generator, all mounted on a common bedplate which incorporates the oil system, and a separate water-cooled condenser mounted directly below the turbine’s exhaust.

‘This was an important order to secure because Aker Floating Production is planning to launch a number of smart FPSO vessels over the coming years,’ notes Fitzpatrick.

‘We have now installed 36 turbines onboard 22 FPSO vessels which have a total power output of over 300MW.’ AOG

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