Jack magic

PROJECT ONE – ERECTION OF C3 SPLITTER VESSEL AT RELIANCE INDUSTRIES’

JAMNAGAR OIL REFINERY

Fagioli PSC India Pte Ltd of Mumbai recently has completed the lift of a 1,480t C3 splitter vessel at Reliance Industries Ltd’s Jamnagar oil refinery in Gujarat state in western India as part of ongoing expansion work at the world’s largest grassroot refinery. Made of steel, the 97m long, 8m diameter splitter vessel was fabricated in Masan, South Korea, and shipped to Gujarat protected by a 14m diameter skirt before being transported by road to the project site.

Jamnagar refinery is designed to refine 540,000 barrels per day equivalent to 27 million tonnes per annum of oil. The splitter vessel has been installed as part of plans to more than double the refinery’s capacity to 60 million tonnes per year to meet India fast growing petroleum product requirements.

Reliance Industries decided to use Fagioli PSC strand jacks to erect the splitter vessel due to working space constraints in the refinery. During the original construction stage in 1998 when the refinery was built on a greenfield site with few obstructions, Reliance erected a similar C3

splitter vessel using a heavy duty ringer crane. Since then the refinery has been further developed with other plant facilities being built near the planned location of the new C3 splitter vessel.

“Reliance were looking at options so they could complete the transport and erection of such a long and heavy vessel without affecting or closing down adjacent facilities in the refinery,” commented Fagioli PSC India Pte Ltd managing director, Rajiv Sethi, “They chose Fagioli PSC on the merit of having a proven safety record and having worked in similar conditions in other refineries around the world.”

Gemini lifted the 97m splitter vessel from its horizontal transport position to its erect vertical position using F- PSC twin, 2000 Te (tonnes equivalent) capacity, 100m tall towers attached with four 750Te strand jacks.

Sethi explained: “These jacks were used for the first time and are part of Fagioli’s new 120m high, un-guyed, 3000Te self erect system that presently is under testing."

Lifting was accomplished using trunnions set 4m above the centre of gravity and "tailing" was carried out using Reliance's own 11320 Super Sky Horse heavy lift crane. Lifting took seven hours to complete at a lifting speed of 12m/hour including geometry checks. Once the lift was completed the suspended vessel was then held in position for a period of four hours while bolt insertion took place and verticality checks were made before the vessel was landed and the system de-tensioned.

Reliance Industries’ decision to use strand jacks for the splitter vessel lift was taken due to various advantages compared with using a large crane.

The lift was undertaken in September during the monsoon season in India.

With a prevalent wind speed of 16m per second at the project site compared with a maximum wind speed of 9m per second or less for cranes, using strand jacks allowed the lifting of the vessel to proceed without any delay.

“The Fagioli PSC Tower lift system offers big benefits to the refinery owners as they do not have to carry out extensive civil works that would be required in the case of using a very large crane at the project site,” Sethi explained, “The guy ropes required for the tower lift were fixed in locations where they would cause minimum interference to the other ongoing works at the Jamnagar refinery site.”

PROJECT TWO – THERMAL POWER PLANT BOILER LIFTS FOR INDIA’S NATIONAL THERMAL POWER CORPORATION

India’s recent rapid economic growth has created fast growing energy demand among the industrial, commercial and residential market sectors. While government plans call for natural gas to play an increasing important role in India’s energy supply equation, coal remains the country’s largest indigenous energy resource and is being used to increase electricity supplies across the country.

Coal-fired power development is overseen by the state-run National Thermal Power Corporation which has awarded Fagioli PSC India Pte Ltd of Mumbai a series of contracts during the past two years to lift steam boilers into position at under construction thermal power plants. The company has installed steam boiler drums using Fagioli PSC strand jacks at eight power plant projects including

Vindhyachal, Bellary, Birsingpur, Kahalgaon, Rayalseema and Sipat power stations, all located within or near eastern central India where a major share of the nation’s coal reserves lie.

“Strand jacks were used rather than other lifting options as it has been technically proven that the innovative strand jacking system method is safe and time saving for lifting boiler drums and other heavy equipment used by the electricity industry,” explained Rajiv Sethi, managing director of Fagioli PSC India Pte Ltd. “This results in lifting time and operational efficiency during boiler drum erection activities. This safe and efficient method is used by most power plant builders in India replacing the use of drum winches employing multiple pulleys with a multitude of wires.”

Once the boiler house columns are erected during construction of a coal-fired power plant, one of the major remaining tasks is to lift and position the steam boiler drum where steam used to drive the power plant’s turbine generators is created by burning coal. The steam boiler drum is hung from the boiler house steel ceiling girders, the height to which the boiler drum is lifted varying from 55m to 90m depending on the power plant’s electricity generating capacity. A typical boiler drum weighs between 125t to 250t depending on the generating capacity of the power plant.

Fagioli PSC India uses Fagioli PSC L180 strand jacks to lift steam boiler drums. The drum is lifted with the help of two synchronously operated strand jacks powered by a power pack. The lifting time for a boiler drum ranges from three hours for a smaller drum lifted to a height of 55m to four hours for a large drum lifted to 90m.

Once lifted to the required height the steam drum is held in place while being bolted with threaded U-bolts to the boiler house roof girders.