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Optimally protected against salt water and sand
Three-stage systems ensure greater operational reliability on oil platforms
Reliability is essential in offshore oil and gas production. Unscheduled shutdowns have far-reaching consequences for the performance of a platform. Due to their location on the open sea, repair work is much more complex, time-consuming and costly. This is why a major oil and gas company invested in the renewal of its air filtration system for gas turbines.
As part of a project, 17 of the more than 40 offshore plants in the Arabian Gulf were to be upgraded. The maximum output of these platforms is designed to be around 200,000 barrels per day. Freudenberg was awarded the contract to modernize the existing supply air system for the gas turbines. The goal was to achieve more efficient filtration using high-performance particulate filters (EPAs), which would ensure smooth long-term turbine operation.
Three-stage system ensures maximum safety
The contract included the planning, development, manufacture and installation of the air filter system. Environmental conditions posed the main design challenge. In the Arabian Gulf, protection against water spray and salt particles in the air, as well as reliable filtration of desert sand and dust, had to be considered. With the new system, impurities and corrosion of the turbines were to be a thing of the past. To achieve this, a three-stage filtration system was chosen, consisting of hydroMaxx coalescer pre-filters, T 60 pocket filters and eMaxx cassette filters of classes E 12 and E 10. The first stage prevents the penetration of water droplets and coarse dirt. Stages two and three are used for fine filtration of the pre-filtered air.
Highly efficient, reliable and easy to handle
The new filtration system is ideally adapted to the high humidity, salt particles and fine dusts and enables low-maintenance operation. In addition, the three-stage concept is extremely user-friendly. The hydroMaxx coalescers are of a 2-in-1 design and are attached directly to the pocket filters, thus requiring less installation space and making them easy to replace under conditions of heavy use. The operating concept is also adapted to the standardized maintenance cycles. As a result, unplanned downtime can now be reliably prevented, thus ensuring that the gas turbines can be used continuously.