About the project

Amazon was approached by a major Oil & Gas Operator, with whom Amazon had installed equipment - offshore Africa - seeking an alternate supplier for a ‘High Flow’ filter cartridge that was being procured from a Corporate filtration manufacturer.

Due to the corporate product lead time being too long to meet operational requirements (which potentially could lead to a shut-down) and due to high operational costs (due to short operating lifetimes between changeouts), Amazon was tasked with resolving these issues.

The application is diesel filtration to protect turbines for on-board power generation. As the application is so critical, the importance of quality and service were paramount to the end user. Amazon met the required lead times whilst also offering a significant saving versus the unit costs of the corporate filter cartridge.

After some time of usage, short cartridge life was also presented to Amazon by the Operator. After investigation, the issue was traced back to a poor quality source of diesel, with very high contaminants present. This led to operational challenges with multiple changeouts per shift and associated increases in running costs - all against a backdrop of falling oil prices! Relaxing the Absolute retention rating of the filter was not possible due to exacting filtrate quality requirements and no extra space was available on-board to add additional filtration units. The only option was for Amazon to look at redesigning the cartridge on every level.

Solutions

After a series of tests using different filter packs (done in the Amazon test laboratory) and analysis of returned used cartridges, production samples of prototype filters were quickly built and sent offshore for field tests.

Positive feedback was instant and several weeks of trials with runtimes (now in days rather than hours) enabled a final selection to be made – which was a filter pack using multiple pleated layers of glass fibre media for maximum void volume and contaminant retention.

The bespoke pack was supported by stainless steel outer cage and core, to allow operation at high differential pressures whilst protecting the media in the rugged offshore environment.

Due to the performance and value proposition of the new filter cartridge, which Amazon managed to maintain at no detriment to unit pricing, alongside Amazon’s service and support, this enabled Amazon to win a long-term supply contract for the filters from the Operator.

About the project

Amazon Filters have recently completed a major contract worth over $2m for the provision of filter vessels and cartridges for an Offshore System being supplied by a Major Package Contractor. Amazon has many years of experience in developing, supplying and supporting a variety of equipment for the international Oil and Gas market and this expertise was put to good use in the specifying the optimum systems for this project. The scope consisted of large glass flake lined steel housings with 25Cr SDSS internals and a quick opening closure. This construction offered protection from corrosion by the filtered seawater, and easy access to the inside of the vessels to facilitate quick filter replacement and all of this without the additional expense of an all alloy construction.

Project Challenges

The filter systems are being integrated into two SRP (Sulphate Reduction Process) packages to provide high quality injection water on two FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading) facilities operating deep-water offshore South America. Six 2m diameter vessels were supplied and configured in such a way to allow change out of filter cartridges without compromising the required flow of water.

With the experience to respond to the constantly evolving requirements typical of Oil and Gas projects Amazon was able to identify in advance the many potential technical issues that would need to be overcome and therefore met the challenging delivery schedule necessary for this project.

Each housing contains over 80 high flow filter cartridges and is rated for 857 m3/h flow of seawater. The filter cartridges used in the system were from Amazon’s SupaPleat XP Extended Life range, manufactured from polypropylene and supplied in the large diameter high flow format. The cartridge design chosen for this operation has been refined and optimised on similar applications over a number of years to ensure the required filtrate quality is achieved by offering a high contaminant retention capability, while at the same time avoiding premature blinding problems that make seawater filtration challenging.

Protection of reverse osmosis membranes for desalination or sulphate reduction processes is of crucial importance to ensure long membrane life and low down-time for cleaning. Amazon’s wide range of absolute rated spun and pleated cartridges have been time proven in critical applications worldwide and their use helps guarantee the filtrate quality meets the membrane’s water feed specification. Fitted inside an Amazon designed filter housing they provide a high quality and low maintenance solution suitable for 25 years or more of operation. Full support services are supplied by Amazon’s expert filtration engineers and laboratory facilities during the life of the plant. Many operators have benefitted from our ability to optimise the whole system thus minimising running costs and maximising production volumes