Soft Starters MCC’s for Petro SA’s Orca Oil Rig sea water lift pumps

Article from News24 from 10 Dec 2000

“Many people don’t know that SA produces its own oil, says Kevin Stallbom, CE of Soekor E&P, a subsidiary of the State corporation focused on exploration and commercial exploitation of oil and gas.

Soekor’s oil comes from two fields in the Bredasdorp basin about 140 km south-west of Mossel Bay, Western Cape. Development of the Oribi field started in May 1997 and of the nearby Oryx in May this year.

The Orca oil rig is the core of the venture. The three-legged structure struts out of the southern Indian Ocean. A network of flexible steel and polymer pipes connect the two drills of the Oribi field directly under the Orca to its processing plant. There is also a flexible pipeline to the Oryx field about 5.5km away. From the Orca, a pipeline runs to a fixed buoy where the floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel is anchored about a kilometre away.

The Knock Dee oil tanker can hold about 950 000 barrels of oil. It takes about four weeks of oil from the two fields at a time to offload in Cape Town and another month to return and anchor for the next load.

The Orca is designed to store up to 33 000 barrels of oil in the base of its three pillars while the Knock Dee is away, reducing output hold-ups.”

In 2008/9 this Oil rig underwent major repairs and maintenance. SK Technologies was approached by Denorco Pumps then, to design and supply control panels for the sea water lift pumps. SK Technologies design, build and commissioned soft starter panels for the control of submersible sea water lift pumps that was being used on the Orca. The commissioning took place onboard the vessel while out at sea and our team was flown via Perto SA’s Swarovski Helicopter to and from the platform.

The application of Seawater Lift, basically means just that! The pumps are located deep in one of the legs of the platform/vessel and are used to pump Seawater water up to what is known as the ‘Topsides’ which is where the majority of the machinery is located such as the Diesel Generators which require cooling water along with other equipment and pumps which require a feed of water.