JS Humidifiers has supplied 19 Neptronic SKE humidifiers, capable of producing over 1,160kg of steam per hour, to humidify two of the world’s largest oil and gas platforms currently under construction for Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd. Both rigs are eventually destined for the sea off the East coast of Russia.

The humidifiers were part of a project undertaken with York Novenco, specialist AHU manufacturers for the offshore oil and gas industry, and AMEC, to supply a bespoke plug and play humidification solution capable of withstanding temperatures as low as minus 30oC.

The 19 resistive steam humidifiers were supplied in 13 bespoke cabinets. Stringent production specifications had to be adhered to in order to meet the requirements for this extreme offshore environment. The cabinets themselves had to be rated to IP55 and climate controlled with heating and cooling. Many fire safety precautions had to be incorporated and certain commonly used materials had to be avoided to enable the units to maintain their integrity in the event of a fire.

Individual plug and play connections for power, water and drain were a necessity for the cabinets, which contained up to three large humidifiers each. This meant integrated switchgear and specially produced master/slave controllers, incorporating low signal selection feedback control, had to be developed to meet the project requirements. Additionally all the cabinets had to have single steam outlet connection points from special stainless steel manifold headers for easy on-site connection.

JS Humidifiers’ Special Projects department worked with York Novenco and AMEC for over a year in the design of these bespoke units. Extensive research and testing had to be undertaken to ensure the correct outputs could be achieved and ongoing independent testing was carried out during production to ensure standards were maintained.

The two oil platforms that the humidifiers are being installed on, called Piltun-Astokhskoye-B (PA-B) and Lunskoye-A (Lun-A) (pictured above), are currently under construction in Korea at the Samsung Heavy Industries construction yard and are part of the Sakhalin Phase II project. When completed, both will be towed to the sea of Okhotsk, approximately 15km off the northeastern coast of Sakhalin Island, east of Russia, where conditions are so cold that the seas that are frozen for six months of the year. Together the platforms will be capable of extracting 86,000 barrels of oil and 55M m3 of gas per day. The Sakhalin II development represents the largest single foreign direct investment project in Russia, requiring a multi billion-dollar investment.

Humidification is required to maintain the environment in the living quarters, storage areas, laboratories and drilling modules on both platforms.

The Neptronic SKE resistive steam humidifier was selected for this project as the units had to be fully stainless steel, low maintenance, with integrated controls technology and very durable. The SKE incorporates Incoloy 825 low watts/sq cm, limescale resistant, heating elements that keep maintenance to a minimum. Patented AFEC technology maintains very accurate water level control and prevents the elements burning out. In addition, zero point switching solid state relays ensure spike free switching of the heating elements. Most importantly the humidifiers could not incorporate any plastic components or disposable parts.

JS Humidifiers is the UK’s largest humidification company and the only UK-based humidifier specialist capable of supplying bespoke humidification solutions of this type. A research and development department and in-house testing facilities enables JS to work with clients to provide humidifiers for extraordinary control of humidity, extreme outputs or specialist construction for controlled environments.

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