IEM Shout Out – Talk on Applications of Forensic Metallurgy

August 20, 2016

This is a shout out for the IEM. My Technical Division will be having a talk on Saturday, 3rd September, 2016, presented by Ir. Qua.

A large proportion of engineering components are metal-based and they will occasionally fail. Identification of the root causes of failure is essential to prevent further occurrences. Accurate identification very often requires the application of metallurgical methods of examination – forensic metallurgy. A summary of four case studies are presented, as follows:

Case A: Gas Turbine blade fatigue failure.
Case B: Stress corrosion cracking of stainless steel.
Case C: CO2 corrosion of linepipe from oil well.
Case D: Arc erosion of babbitt bearings.

As for the speaker:

Ir. Qua retired from the Engineering Faculty UM in 1999 as an Associate Professor; his term was extended as a senior Research fellow to 2002, after which he joined TNB Research Sdn. Bhd. as a Consultant. He is now Technical Director of Profmetal Sdn. Bhd.

Ir. Qua’s specializes in Failure Analysis and metallurgical problems and currently has undertaken more than 400 cases over a wide range of industries. He has recently co-authored a book that includes his past cases, titled. “Applied Engineering Failure Analysis”, published by CRC Press. At present Ir. Qua’s activities has been enlarged to include RBI (risk based inspection) of high temperature boiler steels in power plants, in particular creep degradation and remaining life estimation.

You can register for the talk here and download the flyer here.

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Thailand’s PTT plans to invest more in Malaysia

August 19, 2016

Dateline 2016-07-13, Reuters Africa:

PTT Pcl, Thailand’s top energy firm, plans to invest more in neighbouring Malaysia including cooperation in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, Chief Financial Officer Wirat Uanarumit said on Wednesday.

State-controlled PTT is studying the possibility of joint investments in several projects, Wirat said but declined to give further details.

PTT has been in talks with several LNG suppliers to secure long-term energy supplies as Thailand uses natural gas for almost 70 percent of its power generation.

PTT already has a joint venture, Trans Thai-Malaysia (Thailand) Ltd, with Malaysia’s Petronas to overlook the gas pipeline and gas separation plant projects since 2000.

In June, PTT cut its 2016 investment budget by 15 percent to 43.31 billion baht ($1.23 billion), which is part of its five-year plan to spend 297 billion baht during 2016-2020.

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IEM Shout Out – 2016-10 One-Day Course on “Offshore Sand Separation, Design, Operation and Maintenance”

August 18, 2016

This is a shout out for the IEM. My Technical Division will hosting the above workshop on Thursday 29th September, 2016 by Mr. Hilmi Isa and Eow John Son.

n the upstream offshore oil & gas production, effective and efficient sand separation and management are vital, since the presence of sand and solids in wellhead production lines are likely to cause erosion and blockage issues in the subsequent downstream equipment at production platforms. As a consequence, dangerous incidents, such as the failures of flowlines, production vessels and control valves, have a higher risk of occurring. Moreover, oily sand discharged into the sea is also an environmental concern.

This full-day course is designed to educate the participants on the engineering design, operation and maintenance of the technologies for the removal and cleaning of the sand and solids prior to discharge. Proven sand removal technologies, such as wellhead desanders, produced water desandinghydrocyclones, sand fluidisers, and sand cleaning systems are commonly used in the upstream oil & gas production. However, these sand removal and cleaning systems need to be designed and operated correctly to ensure optimized separation performance.

Mr. Hilmi Isa is Managing Director and Principal Trainer of EDES Technology Sdn Bhd. Hilmi has worked in the oil & gas industry for 20 years specializing in mechanical and process designs for production and processing equipment. Hilmi has worked as Lead Mechanical Engineer for many upstream oil & gas projects, covering wellhead desanders, produced water treatment, sand separation and management, seawater treatment, multiphase production separators, fuel gas treatment, and glycol gas dehydration. Hilmi is also well-versed in the PETRONAS Technical Standards (PTS) and the SHELL DEP Standards. He has also successfully conducted technical training programs for PETRONAS and SHELL engineers and operators. EDES has successfully completed process packages for major clients, such as PETRONAS, SARAWAK SHELL, MURPHY OIL MALAYSIA, SAPURAKENCANA PETROLEUM, TALISMAN, CAMERON MALAYSIA, WOOD GROUP, etc.

Ir. Dr. Eow John Son is Principal Engineer & Trainer with EDES Technology Sdn Bhd. He is also a Professional Engineer (BEM), and a Chartered Engineer (Engineering Council, UK). He obtained his PhD (in electrostatic water-oil separation) from the UK, and has published many technical papers in international journals and conferences. Having spent many years in multinational companies, and having worked in the UK, Singapore, Japan and Malaysia, John is well-versed in the oil & gas processes and production technologies, such as Wellhead Desander, Produced Water Treatment, Sand Separation & Management, Crude Oil Treatment, and Gas Processing for the upstream oil & gas Industry. He has worked from Technical and Commercial Proposal Stage to Detailed Engineering Stage to Commissioning Stage to Production Troubleshooting for oil & gas processes. John has conducted technical training and consultancy work for engineers and operators at Saudi Aramco, PETRONAS, Sarawak SHELL, GAIL India, etc. He is also an Assistant Professor at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR).

You can register here. Flyers may be obtained here.

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IEM Shout Out – Two-Day Workshop on Fluid Mechanics: Impacts on Line, Pump & Compressor Sizing

August 16, 2016

My technical division will be hosting a 2 day seminar on the 1st and 2nd September, 2016. It is worth 13 CPD points, and held at Wisma IEM. The course will be presented by Ir. Anwar Ahmad.

During this Fluid Mechanics: Impacts on Line, Pump, and Compressor Sizing course, there will be overview on the impacts of the fluid mechanics while executing line, pump, and compressor sizing by considering design, operational, and maintenance perspective. Appropriate sizing of all these are very important because of the operating cost where there might be damages to the piping, pump(s), and compressor(s) during operation if it is not properly designed. The impact mainly will give impacts due to the vibration which lead to cavitation and vice versa. Furthermore, properly sized of line sizes, pump(s), and compressor(s) can reduce the turn-down time for maintenance as no issues pertaining to vibration and cavitation which may avoid from frequent changing of the parts for both pump(s) and compressor(s). Codes and Standards applicable for the sizing of line, pump, and compressor will be discussed which may affect upstream and/or upstream equipment of the system(s).

Learning Outcomes

  • Fundamental of Fluid Mechanics
  • Line, Pump, and Compressor Sizing and Correlation among Line, Pump, and Compressor with respect to Fluid Mechanics
  • How does Fluid Mechanics will affect to the operating cost of the plant?
  • How does flow characteristics will affect to the line, pump, and compressor sizing?
  • How to perform hydraulic calculation for new plant and How to evaluate hydraulic calculation for existing facilities especially for revamp study and the impacts of Fluid Mechanics from operational perspective;
  • considerations to be considered during design stage
  • Lesson learnt from previous projects on line, pump, and compressor sizing from both design and operational perspectives.

Ir. Anwar Ahmad is a registered Professional Engineer with Board of Engineer (BEM), Corporate Member with Institute of Engineers, Malaysia (IEM), Corporate Member with Institute of Chemical Engineers, UK (IChemE), Chartered Engineer from Engineering Council, UK with more than eleven (11) years experiences in process engineering in oil and gas industry, mainly in design with engineering firm and operation for technical support during turn around Experienced in process simulations (Hysys, PetroSim, and VMGSim/iCON), heat exchanger rating software (HTRI), flare network backpressure software (FlareNet/Aspen Flare System Analyzer), and flare radiation study software (FlareSim). He’s currently freelance process engineer attached to engineering firms based requirement basis when executing projects and also execute projects remotely if required.

Register here, or download the form here.

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IEM Shout Out – Talk on “Heat Exchangers Design, Inspection and Maintenance”

August 15, 2016

This is a shout out for the IEM. My Technical Division will be hosting a talk on the Monday 29th August, 2016  by Ir. Alzakri. It’ll start at 5:30pm and is worth 2 CPD hours.

The talk will provide an overview on types of heat exchangers commonly used in Oil & Gas industry based on the Codes & Standards used during the design. Common types will be the Shell & Tube Heat Exchangers, Air Cooled Heat Exchangers, Double Pipe Heat Exchangers and Plate Heat Exchangers. This will be followed by the sample fabrication processes which touch on the common welding processes such as GTAW, SMAW, SAW and main forming processes such as plate rolling and tube bending.

Ir Alzakri Ekhwan is a Custodian Engineer for Static Equipment based in PETRONAS Group Technical Solutions and has more than 23 years of experience in maintenance, design, fabrication, inspection and construction of Static Equipment in Oil and Gas industry. Previously, he was the Principal Engineer, Field Engineering Manager for MG3 Lube Base Oil (MG3) Project and Hydrogen Processing Unit 2 (HPU-2) Project and Senior Inspection Engineer of PETRONAS Penapisan (Melaka) Sdn Bhd . He was also the Head of Mechanical Section of PETRONAS Methanol (Labuan) Sdn Bhd.

Register here or download the form here. A map to Wisma IEM is presented here.

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Saturday Star 2016-08-13– Job Opportunities

August 15, 2016

Happy Recover from IEM Engineer’s Run Week.

Donate to your favorite charity (me), buy my recommendations, or through my Amazon store. Or get the Young Turks series (3 books until I can get YTP republished). Where are those corporate sponsors? Or throw donations at me, my camera dive case flooded, and I need a new replacement. Heck, if you want to send me a Canon 5D Mk III plus dive case, I will not say no.

  • A mate of mine is looking for a MD/EngMan type person to help run his engineering company (the main business is skid manufacturing). He can’t handle the work volume, so you know that his oil & gas company is bucking the trend, and has a bright future ahead. If I know you, send your CV’s to me. If I don’t know you, send your CV along anyway, but note I will contact your references. I am not getting a commission for this ad, you know.
  • I’m looking for fresh meat-ish, to help with a peak work period.
  • Nothing in the papers today.
  • I’m looking for jobs for 4Q2016. Send me your POs.

Support your local bookshop!  Bookalicious at The Summit Subang is a good choice. I think they focus on trilogies, quadrilogies, and other ologies. Tell them I sent you, and enjoy the look of perplexity on their faces. Those of you who have dropped my name, thanks!

Food choice of the week? Any weight loss diet.

Let’s get a bit nostalgic with the book selection.

Wetter, Louder, Stickier: A Baby Blues Collection (Baby Blues Scrapbook), BBXX: Baby Blues: Decades 1 & 2, Bedlam

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Extract from “The Will to Compete” – LPG

August 14, 2016

Thanks to you, the readers, I have sold out of Young Turks (plus my own personal autographed copy, anyone want to send that back to me?)

…

Dagangan had to incur huge capital investments in LPG Cylinders and in LPG Bottling Plant. As for the cylinders they could collect deposits from new consumers whilst the rest had to be depreciated against profit. At the beginning Cylinder turnaround was difficult to manage properly. Dagangan new cylinders can be used by others to market their LPG.

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Visit here and buy books so I have some spending money.

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Petrofac pulls plug on contract with Malaysian state-owned oil firm Petronas

August 14, 2016

Who pulled whose plug? And notice that Petrofac’s share prices went up.

Dateline 2016-07-11, City AM (who?)

Petrofac shares popped today after the oilfield services provider scrapped a contract with Malaysia’s state-owned oil firm.

Petrofac’s Malaysian subsidiary and its partners agreed an early stoppage to the development of the the Berantai gas field, located about 150km offshore Peninsular Malaysia, with Petronas.

Petronas was due to pay Petrofac $357m (£275.4m) for the contract last year, which resulted in a profit of just $1m during this period.

The London-listed firm had the right to end it ahead of the expected end date in 2020, depending on the project’s economics.

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Unit Gas Malaysia to raise tariff by 6%

August 13, 2016

Dateline 2016-07-04, Asia Review:

Gas Malaysia, partly owned by infrastructure company MMC Corp., is raising natural gas tariff in a move that analysts say will spare utilities from higher costs but may weigh on earnings of manufacturers which uses gas as an input.

The average gas tariff for heavy consumers and commercial users will rise by 6.0% to 27.05 ringgit per one million British thermal unit from July 15, Gas Malaysia said in a stock exchange filing. Selling prices for most residential customers meanwhile remained unchanged.

The increase in the piped-gas tariff will be “positive” in generating cash for national oil and gas producer Petroliam Nasional, or Petronas, while the impact on state-run power producer Tenaga Nasional is “likely to be neutral,” said Fitch Ratings.
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The 3 Numbers That Oil MISC Berhad

August 12, 2016

Go subscribe to the Motley Fool.

Dateline 2016-07-01, Motley Fool:

MISC Berhad (KLSE: 3816.KL), which is listed on Bursa Malaysia (Malaysia’s stock exchange), is currently one of the largest energy shipping companies in the world.

The company happens to be a listed subsidiary of PETRONAS, the national oil and gas conglomerate of Malaysia.

Here are three numbers you need to know about MISC.

Number 1: 33 billion

MISC has a market capitalization of RM33 billion (around S$11 billion) at the moment. That would make it over three times larger than Sembcorp Marine Ltd (SGX: S51), which is already one of the world’s largest oil rig builders.

MISC also generated revenue of RM10.9 billion (around S$3.7 billion) in 2015 and earned more than RM2.46 billion (S$0.82 billion) in profit. This equates to a net profit margin of 22.5% – not bad at all for a company that’s operating in a difficult environment of low oil prices.

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