THE Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline (DBNGP) in Western Australia has added several turnkey air compressor packages in an upgrade, increasing gas flow to local energy providers.
The DBNGP extends almost 1600km, and is one of the longest and largest capacity natural gas pipelines in Australia. It supplies natural gas to industrial, commercial and residential customers in Perth and major regional centres along its route.
The DBNGP was upgraded in a series of multi-stage expansion projects. Eight gas booster stations were installed, increasing the pipeline’s delivery capacity.
The new boosters are located along the pipeline in rugged and remote locations. They are subjected to a range of demanding environmental conditions, such as temperatures exceeding 500 degrees Celsius. At the same time, they have sophisticated control functionality, and were designed and manufactured to advanced process and electrical specifications. Unmanned reliability was crucial due to the remoteness of the installation.
Champion Compressors provided each booster station with an engineered and customised compressor, providing instrument air for actuating control and shutdown valves and general pneumatic devices.
Each skid-mounted turnkey compressed air package includes two CSF30 air compressors for redundancy, a desiccant dryer and air receiver.
An automatic lead/lag controller allows the operating and standby compressors to be switched. If the compressed air demand exceeds the output of the operational compressor, the standby compressor will start and make up the difference.
The compressors have a stepped output control and a 20% de-rated drive speed. The compressors were over-specification, allowing the units to run cooler and produce less heat. This also results in less wear on the motor and components.
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