The Mokau Compressor Station upgrade has reached a milestone, with the safe re-installation of the unit one gas cooler.
19 tonne cooler lowers the temperature of the gas so that its cool enough to send north in the pipeline. It was previously removed from the Mokau Compressor Station (CS) in early August 2023 and transported to Dialog Fitzroy for workshop repairs and retubing. In late October, the refurbished cooler travelled back to site for installation.
There was much anticipation as the Firstgas project team and contractors Dialog Fitzroy, Entec and Titan Cranes, gathered at the early morning toolbox meeting to discuss the safe reinstalling of the cooler. (The Firstgas project team comprises of - Ramesh Satrasala, Ben Biji, Garry Bromell, Cristin Yukich, Kishore Lankapalli, Gavin Smith.)
Garry Bromell, Site Supervisor for Firstgas said, “The team had been planning this day for a while and the operation to position the cooler back into place went off without a hitch. This was critical to ensuring the completion of the project, so that we can ‘gas up’ and start commissioning from the 13 November.”
Garry also added, “as far as Firstgas compressor sites go, the Mokau CS has to have the best sea views!"
Gentral to Firstgas’ compression and optimisation strategy is to use Mokau CS as the primary compression location on the network for the 400 and 500 pipelines north of Taranaki.
Gavin Smith, Compressor Specialist for Firstgas, explained, “This upgrade enables the Mokau CS to control the Taranaki target pressure (TTP), enabling the compressors to perform more efficiently, reducing the need for other compressors to operate on the network and will see a reduction in carbon emissions.”
“Another key part of the project has been to upgrade to dry gas seal in the compressor. With the upgrade we now only use compressed air as opposed to oil which is a great result and is beneficial for the environment,” Gavin added.