Internship Report 2019

PAKISTAN PETROLEUM LIMITED

MUSTAFA TALAT
GHULAM ISHAQ KHAN INSTITUTE
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
2016381

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Contents
Abstract ................................................................................................................. 3
Production Plant .................................................................................................... 4
SFGCS..................................................................................................................... 4
Operations .......................................................................................................... 6
Purification Plant ................................................................................................... 7
Steam Generation Plant ...................................................................................... 9
Water Treatment Plant ....................................................................................... 9
Steam & Gas Turbines....................................................................................... 10
Purification Plant .............................................................................................. 10
Dehydration Plant ............................................................................................. 11

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 Abstract

My internship journey at Pakistan Petroleum Limited was started on 17th

June 2019 at its largest field and second largest field located at Sui in District
Dera Bugti, Balochistan. The span of internship was four weeks with seven
working days per week. The plant was manufactured in 1952 and since then
the extraction and deliverance of natural gas to people of Pakistan is carried
out by the two major clients of this company namely SNGPL (Sui Northern
Gas Pipeline Limited) and SSGCL (Sui Southern Gas Company Limited). The
gas is being extracted from the 109 wells spread in the vast fields of
Balochistan that are operating continuously. An extensive amount of work is
being is being carried out to discover more areas of gas reserves to cater the
needs of the rapidly growing population of Pakistan. Drilling is done with the
help of service companies’ to set up the wells for the extraction. The gas
that is extracted from three different layers beneath the ground that is SML
(Sui Main Limestone) the lowest one, SUL (Sui Upper Limestone) the second
lowest and the topmost layer HRL (Habib Rahi Limestone). The gas from SML
is the most polluted form of the gas that is extracted and it must be treated
carefully before sending it to the consumer. The impurities that the gas
contains includes CO2 and H2S which are very poisonous and each having its
harmful consequences such as carbon dioxide contributes to global warming
and H2S is itself is a very poisonous that has a very pungent smell and can
cause respiratory issues and lung cancer and both gases when can
significantly contribute to the acid rain which can disturb human life and
damage plants, marine life, buildings and automobiles.
The Pakistan Petroleum Limited’s field of Sui has four departments that are
PP (Purification Plant), SFGCS (Sui Field Gas Compression Station),
Production Office and Administration Office. During my four weeks at PPL, I
spent 3 weeks in SFGCS and 1 week in PP.

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 Production Plant
This is the first stage of the gas being extracted from the wells. Drilling is
performed after which the gas is extracted from the respective areas. The
extracted areas are checked for the extraction pressure of the gas. If the
pressure is desirable then the gas is sent directly to consumer if the layer is
SUL and to PP if the gas extracted is from the SML layer.

SFGCS
If the gas extracted from the wells is not to the desirable pressure than it
has it has to be pressurized before sending it to end-user in the compression
station. The following departments in the SFGCS are all responsible in
carrying out the desired task efficiently.
 QHSE:
QHSE stands for Quality, Health, Safety and Environment. It is one of
the integral and important part of any industry. This department
makes sure the all the parameters required improve the efficiency of
the industry or department are set up to the optimum level without
compromising the safety of the people working in that area. The
workers are required to wear the personal protective equipment that
includes safety googles, cover-all, safety joggers, helmet and ear plugs.
Alongside there are training session held timely to ensure that every
worker is well aware and well trained to deal with any kind of
hazardous situations.
 Planning
Responsible for creating and approving of the budget for each activity
held at the concerned department.
 Store
It is where all the spare parts are stored and kept. The parts are
properly indexed and synchronized with the aid of a software to keep
the track of the equipment parts and are placed in order to save any
time delay in procurement of the part and to avoid any
haphazardness.

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  HVAC
HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning is
responsible for the cooling loads of the plant and provide a favorable
environment to the employees.
 Operations
This is the backbone the plant. It is responsible for controlling the
valves, headers, compressors, turbines, seal oil and lube oil tubes,
pumps, motors, generators, coolers through different software run by
the computers in the control room. They make sure that all the
equipment’s are functioning under optimum conditions.
 Workshop
It consists of the machinery such as Lathe, grinding, honing, bending,
milling, boring, drilling, welding and shaper machines are available.
They are required to repair the worn out parts or the repairable parts
of the system installed.
 Electrical Department
This is responsible for power generation and power distribution across
the department and to run the SUL plant motor and pumps. It is also
used by the HVAC system and for the lights and fans within the plant.
 Instrument Section
Instruments are used to control and measure the basic physical and
derived physical quantities. Control valves, sensors to measure
temperature and flow rate of oil and water, actuators, emitters,
detectors, emergency shut down switches are installed and calibrated
according to needs of the system control room.
 Machinery
This is one of the vital part of the Compression Station. It covers all the
major aspects of the functions and maintenance of the equipment
installed. Workshop and Mechanical Workshop is dedicated for the
maintenance and look after of the machinery.

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 Operations
SML (Sui Main Limestone)
Air from the air handling system enters the turbine along with the flue
gases. The large turbine starts with the aid of another small turbine
that is run by a motor which in turn provides the starting torque to the
large turbine. The turbine is operated by a twin shaft which has a
better response time than the single shaft turbine. The air that enters
is compressed through 15 stages of compression to meet the
stoichiometric requirements. The flue gases enters the combustion
chamber from six ducts that are fed into the turbine. The mixture then
enter the High Pressure (HP) that is running at 7100 rpm and then the
exhaust gases are removed and then the gas moves to the Low
Pressure (LP) turbine that is running at 6500 rpm. This gas then drives
the gear box that has the gear ratio of 1:2.2. The gearbox then drives
the Low Pressure compressor. The air at high temperature is
transported to fin fan coolers. During cooling process the air now
contains some water vapors that has to be removed to protect the
blades of the High Pressure turbine from damaging. This is achieved by
passing the air through the knockout drum which is then routed to
High Pressure compressor. The gas is again cooled in fin fan coolers
and after passing from the knockout drums the gas is finally the gas is
routed to Purification Plant through discharge headers.

SUL (Sui Upper Limestone)

The gas from SUL follows the same procedure as the gas from SML
except the compressors are driven by motors as it was driven by gas
turbines in SML. The gas from SUL does not needs to purified and it is
directly sent to the clients that are SNGPL (Sui Northern Gas Pipeline
Limited) and SSGCL (Sui Southern Gas Company Limited).

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 During my internship, a work related to major overhauling of a Charlie
SML Unit was assigned to the department. This type of overhauling
was done after 40000 years (approximately 4.6 years) of its operation.
This task was a job of almost 60 days. During my stay, only the
dismantling of the major equipment was done along with cleaning of
their casing

Purification Plant

At the purification plant the compressed gas from SML is purified to a

desirable composition as per requirements. Mainly water vapors, H2S
and CO2 are removed from the gas as it is passed through various
stages. The departments of Purification Plant that are responsible for
this whole process includes:
 QHSE:
QHSE stands for Quality, Health, Safety and Environment. It is one of
the integral and important part of any industry. This department
makes sure the all the parameters required improve the efficiency of
the industry or department are set up to the optimum level without
compromising the safety of the people working in that area. The
workers are required to wear the personal protective equipment that
includes safety googles, cover-all, safety joggers, helmet and ear plugs.
Alongside there are training session held timely to ensure that every
worker is well aware and well trained to deal with any kind of
hazardous situations.
 Planning
Responsible for creating and approving of the budget for each activity
held at the concerned department.
 Store
It is where all the spare parts are stored and kept. The parts are
properly indexed and synchronized with the aid of a software to keep
the track of the equipment parts and are placed in order to save any
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 time delay in procurement of the part and to avoid any
haphazardness.
 HVAC
HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning is
responsible for the cooling loads of the plant and provide a favorable
environment to the employees.
 Operations
This is the backbone the plant. It is responsible for controlling the
valves, headers, compressors, turbines, seal oil and lube oil tubes,
pumps, motors, generators, coolers through different software run by
the computers in the control room. They make sure that all the
equipment’s are functioning under optimum conditions.
 Workshop
It consists of the machinery such as Lathe, grinding, honing, bending,
milling, boring, drilling, welding and shaper machines are available.
They are required to repair the worn out parts or the repairable parts
of the system installed.
 Electrical Department
This is responsible for power generation and power distribution across
the department and to run the SUL plant motor and pumps. It is also
used by the HVAC system and for the lights and fans within the plant.
 Instrument Section
Instruments are used to control and measure the basic physical and
derived physical quantities. Control valves, sensors to measure
temperature and flow rate of oil and water, actuators, emitters,
detectors, emergency shut down switches are installed and calibrated
according to needs of the system control room.
 Machinery
This is one of the vital part of the Compression Station. It covers all the
major aspects of the functions and maintenance of the equipment
installed. Workshop and Mechanical Workshop is dedicated for the
maintenance and look after of the machinery.

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  Laboratories
The analysis of boilers, TEG (Tri Ethylene Glycol) and MEA (Mono
Ethylene Amine), samples of gas before and after purification are done
here to make sure the gas that is sent to clients is free of any
impurities and is not harmful to people of Pakistan.

Steam Generation Plant

It consists of 10 boilers ranging from Boiler-6 to Boiler-15. These

boilers are generating steam which is further used for heating of
boilers, for heat treatment in Heat Exchangers, and for driving
turbines. Steam is superheated at a pressure of 400psi (Gauge
Pressure) and a temperature of 508o F. The type of boilers installed is
water tube boilers. The steam produced is stored in the feed water
tanks. The capacity of feed water tanks is 5000 gallons. Then from
feed water tanks, gas is passed from Deaeration Unit where O2 and
CO2 are removed from feed water. These gases are undesired as they
lower the pH of steam. The water is stored in the six raw water tanks
as soon as it is transported from Kashmore through the pipelines. The
capacity of the storage tanks is 30000 gallons. This raw water is
further treated in Water Treatment Plant for final use.

Water Treatment Plant

At the water treatment plant demineralized water is produced.

Demineralization of water is to remove the Magnesium, Calcium,
Phosphates and Sulphates contents from the water. When the steam
is passed through the pipes, these stick to the internal walls of the
pipes at high temperatures and cause internal rusting of the pipes.
Also they increase the thickness of the pipes which reduces the heat
loss hence there is loss in efficiency. There are a total of three tanks

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 where demineralized water is stored. Raw water is treated in the
Reverse Osmotic Unit (RO Unit) to produce demineralized water. The
water is further send down to turbines and boilers for required
processes.

Steam & Gas Turbines

At the Purification Plant, there are total of 4 gas turbines, 2 steam

turbines and 6 diesel engines installed that that are responsible for
driving the tanks, pumps, motors, generators. Two of the gas turbines
have the capacity of 1050 kW and are manufactured from SONAR and
the other two are manufactured from KAWASAKI. The steam turbines
have a capacity of 880 kW and 440 kW and are manufactured from J.
NADROWSKI. The diesel engines have a capacity of 240 kW each and
are manufactured from the company called CUMMINS. The chain for
the distribution of power is shown below:
1. Turbines
2. LV Room
3. Step UP Transformer
4. VCB Room
5. Transmission Lines
The step up transformer increases the voltage from 440 V to 11 kV. VCB
(Vacuum Circuit Breaker) Room is where the voltage of each room is
controlled as well as tripping when required.

Purification Plant
Two headers called North and South Headers receive gas from the
compression station. The gas is first received by the inlet scrubber. Here
liquid content such as water and hydrocarbon condensates are removed
from the gas. Then the gas is passed through MEA (Mono Ethylene Amine)
Contactor. Here Absorption phenomenon takes place. It takes pace only t
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high pressure and low temperature so that is the reason for the
compression of the gas prior to its purification so that its pressure is raised
for maximum absorption at MEA Contactor which separates H2S and CO2
from the gas. In the MEA Contactor, MEA liquid is showered from the top ad
the gas enters the tower from the bottom. Being less dense, the gas travels
upwards and by its contact with the MEA showering from above, MEA
extracts H2S and CO2 from the gas. The gas is now converted into sweet gas
from the sour gas. The MEA is converted into rich from lean. The
composition of MEA is such that it contains 15-20 % of pure MEA and 80-85
% of demineralized water. The gas is then passed through the outlet
scrubber which further separates the liquid content from the gas.
Since this is a continuous process which means that the same MEA is to be
used over and over again for gas purification. Therefore the rich MEA from
the MEA contactor goes to flash tank which separates the trapped MEA. The
preheating of MEA is performed inside the Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger.
MEA is then sent MEA reactivator column where rich MEA is showered from
the top again. Steam passed from the bottom contacts the MEA and
increases the temperature of the liquid to remove H2s and CO2. These
removed gases further goes to condenser bundle to remove the water for
reuse. This removed water is sent to flux accumulator. The MEA has now
been converted to lean MEA. It is then cooled in two stages, first by a heat
exchanger then by a primary cooler. Since high pressure is required so the
pumps used for movement of the liquids are PD (Positive Displacement)
pumps. The pure gas extracted from the outlet gas is now converted to sales
gas and is finally sent to the company’s clients through the pipelines.

Dehydration Plant

At the dehydration plant, water is removed from the sweet and wet MEA as
it causes rusting in pipes by reacting with Glycol. There are a total of 6
dehydration plants. Here the lean MEA is directly sent to the Glycol
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Contactor. The Glycol Contactor consists of eight plates each containing
bubble caps for proper observation of steam. Glycol showered from top
separated water from MEA rising from bottom. The Glycol accumulated at
the bottom is then sent to shell and tube heat exchanger for cooling. The
shell contains Glycol and the tube contains steam. This way heat transfer
takes place. Then it is sent to surge tanks and then to reflux column. This
way same amount of the Glycol can be reused over and over again for
extracting water over gas.

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