Kioge-2022
Augmented Reality in COVID Era: Kazakh Company Becomes First to Use AVC Lens – Engineering Supervision Know How
AVC Group is a leading petrochemical and oil processing engineering company offering technologies, design, construction, maintenance, and turnaround services. The Company has a significant market share in engineering services executing full EPC project life cycles. Its technical capacity ensures access to best available technologies and services on the market.
Know-how, highest levels of expertise, techniques and services provided by personnel are the Company’s key assets. Today, AVC Group is a group of businesses employing about 800 personnel, including 150 highly qualified world class engineers.
The Company implements innovation technologies for the benefit of oil refineries allowing them to enhance their refinery products’ quality and safely control each oil processing stage. Gaining a digital advantage as an EPC contractor is the Company’s major distinction. The Company’s offering digital engineering services to increase productivity, reduce operating costs, and enable sustainable enterprise development.
The digital revolution has helped AVC Group to control EPC work sequences more efficiently, thus improving project deadline monitoring and HSE enforcement during construction.
Personnel Working on HRSG in Confined SpaceAVC Group’s portfolio is supported by its experience in provision of innovative solutions and includes about 150 projects executed to a high standard. Over several years of operations, the Company has acquired a reputation as a reliable partner providing engineering services to Atyrau Oil Refinery LLP, Pavlodar Oil Chemical Refinery LLP, PetroKazakhstan Oil Products LLP (Shymkent Oil Refinery), North Caspian Operating Company N. V., Total, Kazgermunai JV LLP, Uzbekneftegas JSC, Mangistaumunaigas JSC, Karazhanbasmunai JSC, Amangeldy Gas LLP, and others.
A genuine breakthrough of technologies and sustained development of the oil processing industry depends on smooth interactions between clients and contractors.
Atyrau Oil Refinery LLP (AOR) is one of AVC Group’s major clients.
Dating back to Kazakh oil pioneers and currently producing fuels and petrochemicals, AOR has now become the largest refinery in Western Kazakhstan. A unique suite of its processing units outmatches many oil refineries of the Eurasian Economic Union. Its annual oil processing capacity is 5.5 mln tonnes. AOR has state-of-the-art conversion and refining capacities and produces a wide range of high-quality refinery products, including liquefied gas, motor gasoline, PT and Jet A1 kerosene-grade aviation fuels, K5 summer and winter diesel fuel, petroleum coke, along with being a Kazakh only producer of benzene and p-Xylene. The Refinery boasts a Nelson Complexity Index of 13.5 which underscores its uniqueness and technological efficiency.
Gate Valve Replacement WorksAOR’s major priority is uninterrupted operations to ensure oil processing sufficiency to meet national needs and produce an entire range of refinery products and petrochemicals. Any single event of process unit shutdown here would result in significant financial loss estimated in billions of Kazakh tenge.
Here at AOR, AVC Group acquired invaluable experience as one of contractors for scheduled preventative maintenance (“turnaround”) of the Refinery back in 2020, in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic with all flights suspended and borders closed all over the world. A large-scale transition to remote working and a lack of foreign engineering supervisors on the AOR site challenged AVC Group to accelerate its digital transformation.
During turnaround preparation, foreign specialists from various countries had been expected to arrive, among them about 30 Chinese specialists, 7 employees of a Germany-based equipment manufacturer, 5 representatives of a French technology licensor, and many more. The turnaround had been scheduled to take place from July to August 2020. At the time, it was unknown whether quarantine restrictions would be lifted and international flights resumed any time soon. The virus spread was at its peak, and it meant a real force majeure event for AVC who had to promptly perform complex works regardless.
AVC Group engineers could let no disruption of works happen. Upon approval by the licensor, they decided to proceed with a technical inspection and equipment repairs under simultaneous online engineering supervision via augmented reality (AR) glasses. The solution was called “AVC Lens” – smart glasses.
The AVC Lens reduces costs by allowing technical specialists to get involved in works remotely. Its advantages are:
- Prompt detection of fault root causes.
- Simultaneous participation of two or more specialists from different countries.
- Opportunity to work under pandemic and other force majeure conditions.
How it works?
- An AVC Group specialist arrives on site bringing the AVC Lens, equipment, and tools.
- An OEM-certified service engineer from abroad connects to the AVC Lens remotely.
- A local worker carries out troubleshooting or maintenance of equipment under remote supervision by the foreign engineer.
- After repairs, the OEM’s warranty for the equipment is kept in force.
- A client retains a video footage of an entire repair or service process.
In addition to promptness of troubleshooting and high work efficiency, Clients save significant costs, because a service engineer doesn’t have to be physically present on site, but gets involved remotely only. Importantly, the local personnel upgrade their skills by participating in the remotely-monitored technical inspections.
The AVC Lens has been used to successfully carry out the works described below.
R2R FLUID CATALYTIC CRACKING UNIT (FCC)
This is the unit where an AVC Group specialist using the AVC Lens facilitated the most broad-scale and uniquely complex replacement of defective parts.
M0154 HEAT RECOVERY STEAM GENERATOR (HRSG)
An HRSG recovers exhaust gas discharged by a reactor/generator package to produce medium- and high-pressure steam (MP/HP steam). A height of the Refinery’s HRSG is 43 m with an overall weight exceeding 450 t, inclusive of piping and steel structures.
This one-of-a-kind HRSG consists of 9 sections; 3 of them, i.e. 30% of the package, were fully replaced. Spare parts for replacement were delivered on site by 7 lowbed trailers. Repairs and testing were done in confined space, as all HRSG sections are installed in a single-piece solid shell. That was what made replacement of the 2nd section economizer, 7th section MP steam, and 8th section HP steam so complex and exceptional.
Unsatisfactory operations of these HRSG sections would make it impossible to operate the FCC Unit, because the process reliability depends on availability of high volumes of steam and recovery of the reactor/generator package's discharge gas.
The repairs were carried out under remote monitoring by an HRSG OEM’s engineering supervisor.
SLV0101 and SLV0102 GATE VALVES
Digital technologies have allowed personnel from AVC Group and Lanzhou Petrochemical Equipment Company, a Chinese manufacturer, to successfully interact in an augmented reality environment. By communicating immersively through the AVC Lens, the partners got rid of time and spatial constraints during replacement of the gate valve packages.
The gate valves that regulate a catalyst circulation rate and maintain a fluidized bed are installed on the reactor/regenerator package’s regenerated and saturated catalyst pipes of the Unit. The valves are large, having a diameter of 1100 mm and weight of 1600 kg each, and sit at EL 14.000 and 17.000 of the FCC Unit’s reactor/regenerator package.
SLV0102 valve, together with its hydraulic system and drive, was fully replaced during repairs, whereas at SLV0101 the internals, hydraulic control cabinet, drive, and valve cover were replaced. These works were remotely supervised by a valve manufacturer’s engineering supervisor.
PV0101 Catalyst Level Control Valve
FRACTIONATING COLUMN C0201
The column contains 5 distribution packing beds with hold-down trays and a uniform bottom feed injection unit. Mass transfer operations inside the column produce gas oil, gasoline, and gas. After that, the products are forwarded downstream for hydrotreatment.
During the turnaround, the 5th distribution packing bed and feed injection unit were replaced. Replacement of the packing bed was considered hazardous works due to low oxygen and high hydrocarbon/H2S environment. The works were completed successfully under remote engineering supervision by C0201 column's OEM – Beijing Zehua Chemical Engineering Co.
PV0101 CATALYST LEVEL CONTROL VALVE
The valve is a part of the reactor/generator package that controls both catalyst level in the regenerator and catalyst flow velocity in the system. It's fabricated by Kubota, a renowned Japanese company.
After major preparation, the valve was fully replaced during turnaround. Since the valve stands vertically in confined space, it’s installed on the lower process nozzle. The valve’s operating procedure was modified under OEM’s remote engineering supervision.
Worthwhile noting, the AVC Lens was first used in COVID-19 environment and has proved perfectly efficient. It's allowed to complete all works timely and to good quality, while having many highly specialized service engineers and Company’s own resources involved.
The practices first applied during the pandemic are now widely used even after the quarantine restrictions have been lifted. Thus, it will positively contribute to national oil processing in general. The augmented reality makes it possible to heighten the efficiency in many spheres requiring remote supervision. Now, as the AVC Lens is in daily use, clients can save on physical presence of foreign engineers, and Kazakh personnel are granted a new opportunity to enhance their professional skills. AVC Group is willing to share the lessons learned and new working experience in any oil and gas facility nationally.