Maintenance in Qatalum
BIS Production Partners’ Maintenance Consultancy department prepares the maintenance programme for the world’s largest aluminium plant, which is being built in Qatar. The programme should be ready when the plant is commissioned at the beginning of next year.
The work began at home on Herøya in 2007. Now most of the work is carried out in Qatar. Eight to ten men are engaged in the project, which will be a valuable reference project for us, says Yngve Rune Olsen, manager of BIS Production Partner Consultancy.
In photo: Reidulf Tangen, Håvard H. Hansen, Helmer Henriksen, Terje Fuglset, Arne Alkeng, Stein Robert Aasheim
Qatalum
The aluminium plant, Qatalum, will be the largest of its kind ever built. It is owned 50/50 by Qatar Petroleum and Norsk Hydro. The plant has a capacity of 585 000 tonnes per year. A power station of 1 350 MW has been built to provide sufficient energy . Our task partly consists of making a criticallity analysis of all the equipment in the plant, such as pumps, compressors and heat exchangers. Based on the analysis, we prepare a preventive maintenance programme, which the maintenance staff in Qatalum have to follow. The aim is to reduce the possibility of non-planned stops in the plant, explains Olsen.
Training
We are also involved in the training of the personnel in the technical section of the plant. Employees come from all over the world and not all have backgrounds in aluminium production. We shall help all new employees to work «the Qatalum way».
It is fantastic to participate in such a major project right from the start.
In Qatalum, maintenance is the key word from day one. The owners believe that this system will provide high regularity and good utilization of the production equipment, underlines Olsen.