GE’s Power Services business (Baden, Switzerland; powergen.gepower.com) will provide Russian chemicals producer OJSC TogliattiAzot (ToAZ) with parts to upgrade two GE industrial steam turbines at the company’s ammonia production facility in the city of Togliatti, Russia. GE also will supply spare turbine parts for three additional compressor trains and will help ToAZ, one of the world’s largest ammonia production facilities, reduce its operational costs by doubling the length of time between maintenance intervals.
“This large-scale modernization program for our ammonia production facility aims to increase the reliability and effectiveness of our equipment,” said Victor Kazachkov, chief operations officer of OJSC TogliattiAzot, the plant’s managing company. “Upgrading ToAZ’s compression trains is a crucial step to help boost production capacity. As the original equipment supplier, GE is familiar with our operations and has the technology and domain expertise to provide a highly effective and reliable solution that can be implemented without affecting our existing workflow.”
The multiphase project seeks to modernize the plant’s low-pressure and high-pressure industrial steam turbines that drive their corresponding low- and high-pressure syngas compressors in mechanical-drive mode. Based on the results of a field test and an engineering study, GE proposed a new configuration of the front standard of the low- and high-pressure steam turbines, which were previously manufactured by GE.
GE also proposed an update of the low-pressure steam turbine and replacing major components and the control system of the steam turbines to return the syngas compressors trains to 100 percent production capacity, increasing their reliability and long-term availability. The control system upgrade will further increase the turbines’ operability and reliability.
“ToAZ’s ammonia plant offers GE an excellent opportunity to showcase both the durability of our industrial steam turbines as well as our capabilities to provide parts and other life cycle services to increase the performance of these units,” said Pascal Schweitzer, general manager of GE’s Power Services business in Europe and Russia. “This is the biggest worldwide ammonia production facility where GE industrial steam turbines are used for synthetic gas compressors operations. With this project, ToAZ will boost production capacity while cutting down the operating costs.”
GE’s parts will be shipped mostly from the United States during the third and fourth quarters of 2016, and the plan is for installation at the site during the fourth quarter of 2016.