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It’s been likened to doing open heart surgery on a patient who is not only awake but running a marathon during the entire operation – this is the New Zealand Refining Company’s $180 million Point Forward Project at Ruakaka, Northland. By NEIL RITCHIE.
The refinery was built in 1964, was dramatically expanded in the early 1980s and in the 2000s, and is now under going another major upgrade. “We cannot put the patient out for any of the operation; he always needs to be awake and conscious of everything that needs doing,” says project director Jack Ariel, referring to the fact that the refinery will need to keep pumping out petroleum products such as petrol, diesel, aviation fuel, bitumen and even carbon dioxide for carbonated drinks for the entire duration of its latest revamp. “This operation is necessary for the health of the patient, without it he might die,” adds Ariel, pointing to the fact that without Point Forward the refinery might not have a long-term sustainable future. “This is not an isolated project but part of the refining company’s vision, entitled Fuelling New Zealand’s Future, which is key to the future of the company supplying fuels now and for generations to come.” Point Forward is due to be finished by the end of 2009, but it was an earlier $180 million development, the Future Fuels Project, aimed at complying with modern stringent specifications for fuels, that allowed NZRC management to move to this stage of its long term investment.
“Whereas Future Fuels was aimed at addressing the quality of products, Point Forward is a growth project aimed at increasing the amount of oil products produced in New Zealand. It is not changing the profile of the refinery, as Future Fuels did, but is closing the gap between demand and supply,” says Ariel, who arrived here with his family during early 2006, more than a year before the Point Forward final investment decision (FID) was made in April 2007. The major element of Point Forward involves de-bottlenecking the Crude Distillation Unit One (CDU1) block to 13,000 tonnes per day by installing new main column internals, a new kerosene stripper, modifications to the Light Gas Oil (LGO) and Heavy Gas Oil (HGO) strippers, new de-salter internals, new pre-flash drum and de-bottlenecking of exchangers, vessels, pumps and pipe work. Expanding the CDU1 capacity by 40 percent will allow 10 million barrels per year of additional crude intake, which in turn will generate additional residue and largely eliminate the need for imported residue as a supplementary feedstock for the 4500 tonnes-per day hydrocracker.
Global engineering company WorleyParsons did the front-end engineering and design (FEED) and then the detailed design of the project. The company’s main design centre, in Los Angeles, did all procurement services, while the main engineering production centre was at Beijing, where a full three-dimensional electronic model was developed. There is also a Kiwi connection to the project through the New Plymouth offices of Transfield Worley that has done previous engineering work on the refinery. To keep the refinery in production work will be carried out in phases over the 2009 year. “So this means we effectively work around the clock; we can say ‘while you were sleeping we did this and that’ and they can say the same to us,” says Ariel who heads the project management team of US WorleyParsons and Transfield Worley personnel, and NZRC staff along with locally hired people under the direction of NZRC. Materials and equipment have come from all over the world; columns and vessels from China, heat exchangers from South Korea and Australia, pumps from The Netherlands, Austria and Australia, and internals for columns and vessels from Singapore and China. Quite a lot of materials were also procured in New Zealand, says the Royal Dutch Shell man who has worked in several countries on different projects over the years.
By late July the project was about 80 perfect complete, with more than one million hours worked and only one lost time incident, where a worker lost a tip of a finger. Ariel says the workforce has been very committed, almost treating it as their own pet project. “There is a huge team spirit that is almost unbeatable." Workers have been motivated on occasion by speakers addressing them in a large marquee. One such motivational speaker was retired international rugby league star Tawera Nikau. Besides being a strategic project for the refinery and the country, Point Forward has been a great training ground for the local people. “They will leave this place better equipped, better prepared and better able to make great contributions to their communities and to New Zealand,” says Ariel. “By executing this project we expect a strengthened Northland contracting base that can not only benefit the area but will also support NZRC business in the future.”
“Though we would love to stay, as this is a beautiful place to live. We love the candor of the easy-going people. If I had come here earlier in my working life, I could have become a Kiwi.”
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Marsden Point refinery, on the south head of Whangarei Harbour entrance, is the site of our only oil refinery and it is worked hard, 365 days a year.
The earlier Future Fuels was completed in 2005 and allowed the refinery to produce petrol with only one percent benzene, down from three percent and diesel with only 50 parts per million of sulphur, down from 500 ppm.
The upgrade will also increase the production of white products (petrol, diesel and aviation fuel) by about six million barrels per year, an increase of 20 percent above current production of about 30 million barrels per annum.
Point Forward is a sizeable project for New Zealand. Construction works have been contracted out to local contractors and the labour force is mostly local, with over 80 percent coming from the Northland region. The total workforce usually averages about 250 but can peak at close to 400 during shutdowns.
Ariel, now in his late 50s, most probably won’t be around for the next project at the refinery as he and his family will be move on next year, probably back to Argentina where he can, as a self confessed football fanatic, more closely support Club Atlético River Plate, the popular River Plate football club based in Buenos Aires.