High-Pressure Pumps for High-Viscosity Fluids

Getting the Oil to the Shore

JOO ALBERTO MENIN PAUL MEUTER SULZER PUMPS Off the southeastern coast of Brazil lies the Campos offshore field, the main source of Brazilian oil. The Brazilian oil company, Petrobras, is implementing a master plan designed to transport and to deliver part of the Campos output onward to the onshore refineries. The plan comprises a combination of subsea pipelines, ships, and one fixed repumping platform. Sulzer Pumps delivers pumps for highviscosity fluids crucial to the project, as well as longterm maintenance services, which will keep the oil flowing with almost 100% availability.

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PDET is the Brazilian acronym for Campos basin oil outflow and treatment plan. It names the project for pumping and collecting part of the Campos basin crude oil production offshore, where tanker ships will pick it up. The PDET complex consists of one fixed repumping platform named PRA-1, a floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel, and two single-point mooring buoys (SPMs), all connected by means of valves and submarine pipelines (Fig. 1).

dynamic viscosity is the Pascalsecond (Pas). The unit centipoise (cP), which equals 0.1 Pas, is commonly used, because water has a viscosity of 1.0020 cP at 20 C.

Pumping Highly Viscous Fluids

Petrobras contracted Sulzer Pumps to deliver the centrifugal pumps for the PRA-1 repumping platform and entered an assistedoperation and maintenance contract for a period of eight years. The pumping solution comprises a high-pressure multistage axially split volute case pump with two impellers. The suction impeller is a double-flow impeller for better suction performance at lower suction heads. The specified rated flow for the main pumps is 0.394 m3/s against a discharge pressure of 140 bar, running with an oil of viscosity grade of 204 cP, at a maximum speed of 3480 rpm, and a total absorbed power of 3.5 MW. In other words, one of these pumps delivers a fluid more than two hundred times thicker than water at a rate of about two bathtub fillings per second against a pressure of a water column of 1400 m. The fluids handled are highly corrosive; they contain hot water with dissolved salt and sulfide. For this reason, the pump casing, impellers, and shaft are made of duplex stainless steel. The pumps sit on a skid together with a variable-speed turbo fluid coupling, the electric motor, the buffer-fluid system for the mechanical seals, the minimum flow system, the control panel, as well as a vibration and temperature monitoring system. The heavyduty base plate is designed for three-point mounting with an anti-

Collecting Oil from Five Platforms

The platform PRA-1 is being installed 115 km from Rio de Janeiro off the coast in shallow waters of 105 meters depth. It will receive the output of oil through individual pipes on the seabed from five platforms located in deep water of up to 1800 meters. The repumping platform will then drive the crude oil to the storage vessel and to the SPMs, where tanker ships will load and transport it to the onshore terminals. The deep-water platforms are expected to produce 630 thousand barrels per dayone barrel of oil contains 159 litersduring their peak period. The terminal is designed for handling 818 thousand barrels of oil per day. The pipelines will run for up to 70 km under deep water. Pumping crude oil over such a distance requires pumps that can move highly viscous fluids at very high pressure. The physical value of viscosity describes a fluids thickness or resistance to pouring. Water has a low viscosityit is thinwhereas some crude oils have a high viscosity. The SI physical unit of the

1 The PRA-1 platform in Brazils Campos oil field will collect and transport a notable part of the Brazilian oil production. Sulzer Pumps is the long-term partner for pumping and service solutions on this offshore facility of Petrobras, the world's largest deepwater oil producer.

2 The pumping skid houses pipes, pumping, and monitoring equipment. Safety is a concern in this offshore installation. A control system monitors for leaks in the pipes by measuring the mass flow: the output leaving the platforms must be unchanged on arrival at the PRA-1 terminal.

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3 Computer-aided analyses of the units at design stage deliver essential information on the operational behavior of the new pumps. The modal analysis of the base plate skid, pump, and process pipeline enabled the extension of the operational range to other rotational speeds.

vibration mounting system (AVM). The lube-oil system of the variable speed turbo fluid coupling also lubricates the bearings of the pump and the electric motor.

very high design pressure of 175 bar with a maximum test pressure of 227.5 bar. Because the two pumps operate in series, the second pump operates at a very high pressure level. The elevated pressure is demanding for the axially split casing, which is necessary for easy maintenance on board of the platform. The combination of the very high design pressure and the axially split design required an extensive engineering effort from both the Sulzer Pumps headquarters in Winterthur (CH) and Sulzer Brasil in So Paulo (Brazil).

tween 2000 and 3480 rpm. A torsional analysis of the complete pump-trainincluding pump, elastic coupling, turbo fluid coupling, elastic coupling, and electric motorshowed the existing torsional critical speeds and helped to prevent operational problems stemming from resonance.

Computer Analysis Supports Design

A computer-generated 3D model of the pump casing formed the basis for a subsequent finite element calculation that assessed possible leakage and deformation prior to the execution of the pressure test. To assess lateral critical speeds and prevent failure due to rotor dynamic problems, a numerical damped-lateral rotor-dynamic analysis with coupling unbalance response was performed. During this test, the pump was assumed to pump highly viscous crude oil under new and worn clearances conditions. A modal analysis of the bare-shaft pump showed the natural frequencies of the bearing housing stator. The modal analysis of the pump assembled on the base plate revealed the relevant natural frequencies, which are below the existing excitation frequencies, per-

High Pressure, Easy Maintenance

Sulzer Brasil designed the pumping skid to facilitate the manufacturing and assembling on the shop floor. It was necessary to fit the piping for the lubricating oil, the mechanical seal buffer-fluid, the working oil for the variable speed turbo fluid coupling, the cooling water, as well as the remaining skid components on the confined space of the skid (Fig. 2). This supply is a new challenge for Sulzer Pumps. It is planned that the pumps in the pipeline will work serially, which requires a

Variable Speed, Flexible Operation

To account for the different grades of oil viscosity and the expected uncertainties involving the prediction of the system curve, the engineers at Sulzer Pumps designed the units to operate at variable speeds. The speed of the electric motor is constant; therefore, a variable-speed turbo fluid coupling between motor and pump is used to change the speed of the pump rotor. Because of the different operating speeds, different excitations can occur during the normal operation of the pumps. On the platform, the speed varies be-

4 The hydraulic contour of the pump (left) and the pump after assembly in workshop of Sulzer Brasil in So Paulo. Superboltsspecial nuts for high-pressure applicationsguarantee zero leakage at the high operating pressure of the PRA-1 pumps.

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mitting pump operation in a second operational window between 1284 and1449 rpm (Fig. 3). Additionally, the design engineers examined the relevant static load cases, such as the coupling displacement and the lifting of the complete skid in order to prevent operational problems.

Tests Confirmed Computer Analysis

Correcting a leakage problem after the pressure test trial is normally complicated, time consuming, and expensive. Gasket integrity, split flange stress, and tightness were verified before the pump went on the test rig. A pressure test at 227.5 bar at the factory in So Paulo confirmed the predictions of the finite element analysis (FEA) during the design, and tests showed that the pump will fulfill the expectations when operating at the platform (Fig. 4). Sulzer Brasil is currently manufacturing nine pumping skids, one bare shaft pump, a spare rotor, and a spare pump casing (Fig. 5). The scope of supply includes the design, manufacturing, and individual performance tests for all five booster pumps, as well as for all four main pumps; it also includes the full-load string test of all nine skids on the test bed of Sulzer Brasil.

the pumps mean time between overhaul (MTBO) and minimizes the possible wear on the internal labyrinths. The base sediment and water (BSW) contenthot water mixed with chloride, salt, sulfide, and sand particlesin the different viscosity grades of the pumped oil causes abrasion in the narrow gaps of the pump clearances. An ultrasonic flow meter on the leakoff balance line allows the online assessment of any flow increase associated with an enlargement of the internal pump clearances.

99.8% Availability
Petrobras chose Sulzer Pumps not only as a supplier of highly engineered pumps on the PRA-1 platform; the oil company included an eight-year service maintenance contract in the scope of supply. Sulzer Pumps is responsible for keeping the availability at 99.8% and maintaining the high reliability of the pumps. The engineering and service solutions delivered by Sulzer Pumps will increase the MTBO of the individual pumps and the whole system. The variable-speed operation allows more flexible operation of the pumps. This advantage and less downtime will certainly increase the overall productivity of the PRA-1 pumping complex.

5 Milling of the pump casing in the Sulzer workshop in So Paulo. The housing for the bearings and seals is manufactured with highest precision to avoid leakage.

Coating for Abrasion Resistance

Since the PRA-1 production represents 40% of the Brazilian oil production, the pumps are required to have high availability and reliability to avoid interruptions of production at the platform. Coating with superior abrasion resistance of all internal wear parts extends

Contact
Sulzer Brasil S.A. Joo Alberto Menin Rua Manoel Cremonesi, 1 So Bernardo do Campo, SP CEP 09851-330 Brazil Phone +55 11 4393 23 50 Fax +55 11 4392 56 00 joao.menin@sulzer.com

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