Online desanding project – SHELL Nigeria (SPDC) – OGBIGBO site

With the help of ALTRAD UK, ALTRAD Nigeria performed its first online desanding of pressure vessels for Shell Nigeria. Three vessels were cleaned with zero impact on Shell production or environment. 940kg of sand were removed from the three pressure vessels. It is a new activity for ALTRAD Africa, and we took this opportunity to invite other clients such as TOTAL E&P.

Hereafter, the images highlight the scale/solids built up within the vessel internal surface areas pre/post desanding operation. By removing more than 800kg of sand/solids and cleaning the internal surface areas using the “Altrad Intrusion tool”, we can see significant temperature change from the image taken post operations.

A number of Brass components were also retrieved from the vessel during de-sanding operations. Upon finding the components, ALTRAD emphasised this to Shell, which highlighted the problem and allowed the team to investigate further. Working together as a collective, ALTRAD aim to provide as much assistance as possible to help maintain steady production.

Since then, our technician has been requested to do surveys for the same online de-sanding activity on 2 FPSOs for TOTAL E&P and Shell Nigeria.

Congratulations to ALTRAD Nigeria team (Darren Campbell and Adefaramade Oniya) and ALTRAD UK team (Vlad Kokarietis) for such new activity performed with success.

Other Oil & Gas operators such as TOTAL E&P, ExxonMobil, Chevron and ENI Nigeria are very interested by our ALTRAD online desanding technique.