By Kim Tae-gyu
Korea’s Daewoo Engineering & Construction made history last year by completing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Prigorodnoye, a southern city near Sakhalin off Russia’s east coast.
The Seoul-headquartered builder worked on the plant for several years, geared toward compressing natural gases at extremely low temperatures for transportation of the resources by sea under the auspices of the Sakhalin-2 project.
The $147 million venture involved a pair of cutting-edge trains, the core facilities for any LNG plants, which combined for annual capacities of 4.8 million tons. A huge amount of pipes were procured to build them up.
``The quantity of pipes with a diameter of 10 millimeters totaled 1,080 kilometers for the two state-of-the-art trains. By successfully wrapping up the difficult job, we have demonstrated our technological clout across the world,’’ a Daewoo official said.
An LNG train refers to the liquefaction and purification facilities in an LNG plant.
In order to move natural gases from the reserves to their destinations, companies tend to use long pipelines. In some cases when this is not an option for some reason, alternatives typically include vessels.
The hitch is the volume has to be reduced by big margins so that the transportation by sea becomes commercially viable. Trains are the most critical elements of the missions performed through liquefaction at LNG plants.
Along the way, refrigeration technologies are used to cool the gas down to as low as minus 160 degrees Celsius. During the process, the highly flammable natural gases may cause huge problems.
The train technologies are about preventing any accidents based on very stringent safety measures and precautions.
``Through our experiences at LNG plants in Nigeria, we have gained technological knacks for the trains. As the Sakhalin projects will require more plants down the road, we will be able to secure additional orders there,’’ the Daewoo official said.
``We gained very positive feedback on our work because our employees went all-out to accomplish the construction as scheduled. Even over the severe cold spell on the island during winter, we did not take time off unlike most other companies involved in other nearby projects.’’
The Sakhalin-2 project features the first LNG plant in Russia, which has drawn numerous global developers and funds. It covers areas, which have been hardly been touched by human hands.
Daewoo is currently carrying out a host of large-sized turnkey projects such as gas plants in Nigeria and the Benghazi Central Hospital in Libya. Previously, it built the Trump World Tower in New York and an office building for the Telekom Malaysia Group, which is deemed a new landmark in Asia.
``Such projects have enabled Daewoo to cement its presence as a world-class construction company,’’ Daewoo Chief Executive Officer Seo Jong-uk said on the firm’s website.