REFINERY NEWS May 2012

Above: Some of the team members involved in the refurbishment L-R: Keith Charlton, Ravi Moodley, Donovan and Andrew. Other team members that made this project a huge success were Mohammed Ayoob,
Francis Perry and Mike Hancock.
New Switchgear for
Refinery substations
The Refinery has taken a giant step forward in terms of reducing the risk of
trips triggered by power outages. The refurbishment of five substations in the
Combo, South Complex and Alky units should go a long way towards ensuring
uninterrupted power supplies to these sections of the plant.
Project Manager, Steven Moodley says
the refurbishment of the substations will
ensure that we are better equipped to
manage equipment failure, handle power outages
and pin-point the failure causes earlier.
The refurbishment which was completed in
four weeks, involved the replacement of obsolete
switchgear – some of which had been in the
Refinery since the Refinery’s early days.
These challenges should be a thing of the past
as the new switchgear should be much more
reliable and it incorporates a fast fault clearance
time. This means that in the event of a fault the
state-of-the-art features speed up detection and
resolution of problems. The substation equipment
is also protected from catastrophic damage.
As part of this electrical infrastructure upgrade
substation T, which supplies the majority of power
to the Alkylation plant is now equipped with two
sources of supply where it was a single source
supply in the past. “This will increase the reliability
and availability of Substation T substantially,” says
Steven.
Safety is our first priority and the teams involved
must be commended for executing this high risk
project without a Lost Time Injury or Medical
treatment Case and just one First Aid injury.
Over and above that, the strong technical
support and team commitment resulted in the
project being completed on schedule, with
minimum deviations and a significant cost saving
in excess of 40% achieved by utilizing in-house
Engen personnel for the project.
Senior Reliability Electrical Engineer, Ravi
Moodley says the project was “a complex project
involving a lot of hard work, but dedication and
commitment from the team, made this project a
success”.
Above: The substations after refurbishment
10 // engen Refinery news May 2012