Rotating Machinery Solutions

Increased global demand for energy and pressure on supplies of oil and gas has created the need to optimise plant operations, ensure high availability and increase throughput. At the same time climate change and clean air legislation has created additional pressure on owners of process plant and rotating equipment.From a maintenance perspective the last decade has seen a growth of  independent service companies that challenge the traditional relationship between original equipment manufacturers and operators. Also, condition-based maintenance practices are recognised as mechanisms to increase plant availability.Noble Offshore provides technical solutions and product to owners and operators of rotating equipment and process plant, our experience includes:

• Industrial Gas Turbines
• Aero-derivative Gas Turbines
• Electricity Generators
• Pipeline / Injection Compressors
• Pipeline / Injection Pumps
• Gearboxes
• Heaters / Boilers
• Steam Turbines
• Electric Motors
• Fans
• Blowers

Improving Reliability and Availability

Understanding how best to operate equipment and avoid operating outside favourable conditions improves uptime (e.g. high availability and reliability). This can be critical particularly with offshore Oil and Gas production where in-built redundancy is expensive and failure of a single machine can result in large production losses.

Reducing Costs

Effective management of operating costs requires knowledge of current efficiencies and energy usage. High energy prices mean that equipment may be operated in ways for which they were not originally designed. Operational efficiency and equipment optimisation are the main factors in managing energy usage and Noble Offshore solutions support informed decisions to optimise performance in the most energy-efficient way.

Emissions Compliance

Noble Offshore emissions monitoring solutions are field-proven and recognised as an acceptable and verifiable method of determining and reporting combustion plant emissions such as NOx, CO, O2, SO2, CO2 and unburned hydrocarbons.

Emissions Trading

Emissions trading requires combustion plant Operators to monitor and report their CO2 (and sometimes NOx) emissions against their Government-allocated allowance. Noble Offshore solutions provide robust and verifiable methods of determining and reporting these emissions.

Condition Monitoring

The experienced application of machine condition monitoring increases reliability by providing early warning of developing problems, before these becomes critical and expensive. Noble Offshore engineers evaluate existing / obsolete condition monitoring systems, design and commission new solutions and provide static and dynamic vibration analysis of rotating and reciprocating equipment.

Machine Protection

Noble Offshore design, build and commission protection systems for high-value critical rotating equipment. Our experts provide turnkey monitoring and diagnostic solutions that protect critical plant and assets.

Emissions Reporting

Noble Offshore emissions monitoring and reporting solutions are field-proven on a wide range of combustion plant. Emissions to air from gas turbines, heaters and boilers have a direct correlation with operation of the combustion plant e.g. load, firing temperature, fuel flow and quality, all of which can be reliably and accurately measured by standard package instrumentation.

Calibrated emissions models utilise measurements from existing instruments already available in the equipment / site control system and calculate, display, trend and report the emissions of NOx, CO, O2, SO2, CO2 and unburned hydrocarbons. Multiple gas turbines combustion systems are accommodated including Standard Annular Combustion (SAC), Dry Low NOx (DLN) and steam / water injection. The LA method has been operational since 1996, when the UK environmental regulator granted approval to this reporting solution, which has now been implemented as a Best Available Technique (BAT) for European and Middle East Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) emissions compliance reporting.

The key benefits of the Noble Offshore solution are:

• Recognised by regulatory authorities as a cost effective Best Available Technology (BAT)
• Can be applied to both new equipment and as a retrofit to existing equipment
• Lower capital cost than the installation of in-stack monitoring technology that consist of an exhaust gas extraction/sampling system, gas analysers and calibration gases
• More reliable than in-stack monitoring technology, providing better repeatability and overall uncertainty.
• Reduced routine maintenance and lower operational cost than in-stack monitoring technology, which require daily / weekly calibration checks and incur high call-out and replacement costs
• Only requires calibration to satisfy local environmental regulations and following major maintenance e.g. hot section overhaul
• Automatically generates warnings and only requires periodic user supervision
• Automatic emissions reporting to meet local operations and environmental regulations
• Calculates emissions across the entire operating range, including NOx reduction technologies
• Can be configured with redundancy (i.e. backup models using alternative engine parameters) to continue calculating emissions if input signals to the primary model fail

Noble Offshore has extensive experience and an impressive track-record in the specification, engineering design, system build, installation, testing, commissioning and ongoing technical support of emissions reporting systems and our engineers also undertake independent emissions studies, testing and on-site validation.

Condition Monitoring Solutions

Noble Offshore condition monitoring and machine protection solutions include the monitoring and analysis of rotating equipment vibration, temperature, pressure, speed, acceleration etc. Our products and systems comprise the following advanced technology from Vibro-Meter SA of Switzerland:

• Machine protection systems
• Vibration transducers and measurement systems for displacement, velocity and acceleration
• Dynamic pressure measurement systems for gas turbine combustion acoustic sensing
• Temperature, pressure and flow measurement systems
• Cables, connectors, junction boxes, galvanic isolators and signal conditioners
• Electronic interface modules
• Dynamic data analysis software tools

Noble Offshore condition monitoring engineers will evaluate existing condition monitoring and protection systems and specify the requirements to replace obsolete systems. Noble Offshore will also design, build and commission turnkey systems that provide static and dynamic condition monitoring and protection of rotating equipment.
Noble Offshore experts provide tailored monitoring and diagnostic services to minimise the high-cost of unplanned shutdowns. Noble Offshore provide both onsite and remote healthcare services to evaluate dynamic behaviour
and mechanical failures including:

• Vibration investigations including the analysis of signal frequency components
• Diagnostic support, consultancy and studies
• In-situ trim balancing
• Training on vibration instruments and monitoring
• 3rd Party witness testing and validation
• Start-up testing
• Set-up and implementation of condition monitoring systems
• Fault diagnosis using portable and permanently installed equipment
• Remote surveillance of condition and performance

Noble Offshore also work with client-nominated specialist suppliers that provide integrated machinery healthcare, overhaul, maintenance and repair services.