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Natural gas terminal meets 99% supply availability with DBB valves.

How a natural gas terminal meets 99% supply availability with DBB valves

The cease of natural gas imports from Russia forced Germany to switch from energy providers. Since then, Norway has grabbed the number one spot as the main supplier. To secure reliable gas transfer and distribution, all facilities within the circuit must be at peak capacity. One of those facilities is a Gassco plant located in northern Germany. The revamped Emden natural gas terminal kicked off operations in 2016 with the operative premise of providing an availability delivery rate above 99%. Since the start-up the plant did not reach its potential due to a leakage problem at the shut-off valves. Together with the customer, we set about working out a solution to achieve the high requirement of 99% availability. Here’s how we helped Gassco get to the promised target.

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Practical test installation of DBB piping ball valve in natural gas plant.

Practical test installation of a DBB Piping Ball Valve at a gas storage facility

One of the things that I enjoy the most about my job is discussing new improvement opportunities with clients. Situations like that push me to engineer viable solutions that solve operational setbacks, so they can enjoy more reliability and safety at work. And that was what happened when I designed the practical test installation procedure I’m about to share. It was for a double block and bleed (DBB) ball valve installed in a gas storage facility.

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Challenges of blending hydrogen into natural gas.

Challenges of blending hydrogen into natural gas

We are about to enter a new industrial age. The age of blended gaseous fuels! Blended fuels generate when mixing hydrogen with natural gas in the existing grid. Above everything, blending is an urgent trend seeking to speed up the current decarbonization plans to stop climate change. To bring context to today’s status, we have gone on a detailed research and compiled relevant information from different external sources that comes in handy to prepare for the blending future now.

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Man use touchscreen to download digital structured data for a smart maintenance in process industry acc. to VDI 2770.

Smart maintenance in process industry based on structured data

The adoption of smart maintenance practices is a leading strategy in the process industry. In new plants or recently modernized facilities, it seeks to reduce asset downtime, improve safety, and create a preventive culture among operators and maintainers. Still, plant engineers often lack access to a clean and digitized process database set for this purpose. How to make amends? Challenging suppliers in the delivery of readied structured data is essential to change the path. So, I’m going to guide you on how to get the most from your supplier in this matter. An early hint: It involves standard VDI 2770.

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Technician ist walking through offfshore platform with lot s of floating and trunnion-mounted ball valves.

Flow control operations: Floating vs. trunnion-mounted ball valves

Every engineer encounters the challenge of having to choose one technology over another. A notable example is specifying the valve solution for a given process line. Sometimes the choice is evident. Other times, it is a tight horse race of options. In light of that, in this article, I want to focus on a topic I frequently get asked about: the differences between floating and trunnion-mounted ball valves. Selecting the most valve of the two for a specific service could be tricky at times. Thus, knowing what sets them apart helps a long way. Read on to learn about both valve solutions. My goal is to lead you to identify which design is more appropriate.

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Is European natural gas network ready for hydrogen?

Is the European gas network ready for hydrogen?

European countries are on the quest for industrial decarbonization. To get the job done, the countries must meet European and local climate protection targets.
To this end, new regulatory and technical frameworks are in development. The resulting conditions will guide the industry into its next phase: The conversion path of the (natural) gas infrastructure into a hydrogen (H2) economy!

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