BHGE Turbogenerator Module for Tengizchevroil project in Kazakhstan

BHGE’s Turbomachinery Process & Solutions team is ready to ship the first in a series of 5 modules assembled at our Avenza yard in Italy, for the TENGIZ project. This first one, weighs more than 3,500 tons and is approximately 60m long, 15m width and 25m high. It was moved last Monday, June 25th, from the yard to the port in Carrara, weaving its way through the city, passing houses and shops. To ensure the highest possible safety standards and minimize any impact on local citizens during the departure, the transportation to the port has been completed overnight.

This module is now on a vessel that will sail across the Mediterranean Sea. It will depart in July passing close to Greece, going through a transshipment base in Bulgaria, then moving across the Black Sea, the Volga-Don Canal, and the Caspian Sea. It will dock in Kazakhstan then the modules will do the last portion of the trip overland, arriving in September at Tengiz site located in Western Kazakhstan, where Tengizchevroil LLP (“TCO”) operates one of the world’s largest oil fields.

How is BHGE contributing to the TENGIZ project? BHGE is supplying in total 5 Turbogenerator Modules to Tengiz, each of them will be equipped with a Frame 9 gas turbine and will generate 130MW of power. To put that into prospective, if you consider that in Europe the average power consumption per household is less than 3kW, the total power generated by the modules will be equivalent to the needs of about 250,000 European families.

In Kazakhstan the modules will support the power requirement of the field operating in a harsh environment, with extreme thermal fluctuations between summer and winter. This is why the modules have been designed in a fully integrated configuration with controlled air temperature to assure the suitable environment under any external weather conditions and allow operations and maintenance even during the most challenging periods of the Kazakhstan winter.

Last August 2017, we reached a major project milestone, with the stacking-procedure during which the upper section of the main GTG module was placed safely and precisely on the lower one. The tolerance for such a complex procedure is barely a few millimeters. Imagine the precision needed to place an object that weighs ~1000 tons and is ~60-meter-long, with a maximum margin of error that is barely wider than the thickness of a few sheets of paper!

On May 2018 the entirely assembled module, has been tested at full load at our assembly yard in Italy. This will assure its plug & play configuration once at the destination where it will be put into service quicker and with a significant de-risking of the whole commissioning activity.

In collaboration with Tengizchevroil LLP, and our partners OMA, CONTEC and Porto di Carrara we are celebrating the important milestone of the first shipment during an open day on Wednesday, June 27. The project has been carried out in Tuscany, always supported by the Regione Toscana, and that’s why we wanted to include the local employees and their families to celebrate this outstanding team achievement. This will also be a great occasion to talk about safety & security, innovation and social responsibilities for local content – all critical aspects of our work. The collaboration with TCO was key to success, we worked closely together every day throughout the whole project, sharing thoughts, addressing concerns and finding innovative solutions- a great way to learn from each. 

The shipment of the first module will be followed by the others soon.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this achievement, with their passion and commitment!