By Yemie Adeoye
National Engineering and Technical Company Limited, (NETCO) has announced the completion of its  SOKU NAG plant modification project as well as the inauguration  of  its asset disposal committee.

The plant which was built about 20 years ago requires modification or brown field activities based on experienced on-the-spot assessment through site visit, data analysis and inter-phase with equipped vendors.

The objective of the works required from the beginning involved verification of previous front end engineering design(FEED) carried out, own and adapt for detailed engineering design (DED) activities.

Carrying out detailed engineering design and interface with the AG compressor vendor for NAG duty. Generating ITT package to enable early tendering for long lead items (LLI).

Producing final DED package to enable company achieve the modification required through construction activities.

NETCO kicked off the project in November 2010 with the aim of concluding FEED in 3months and DEED in 4 months. On analysis of the initial FEED data from shell, it was discovered that the initial FEED data were inadequate and the SLIM FEED concept changed to re-FEED.

NETCO presented this fact to shell and gained shell’s approval to baseline the schedule. In all, 4 different variations were approved for the project with schedule extensions of 5 months.

The project team visited twice in the course of executing the project to collect data for analysis.

The project execution from FEED to DED was subjected to strict internal and external reviews. Some of the reviews done includes one full HAZOP at FEED stage One SIF classification review at FEED, Mini HAZOP/SIF at FEED stage was also carried out amidst others.

These reviews were in addition to the normal project review cycle at IFR (issued for client’s review) and IFA (issued for client’s approval). The cumulative effect of all resulted in these schedule elongation.

However, the importance of this was not lost on NETCO. This is because the SOKU NAG plant is one of the strategic facilities within shell fold. The importance of this plant stems from the fact that it is a gas plant that processes Non Association Gas (NAG) from some of the shell old wells for 3rdparty gas off-takers.

It is also expected to contribute significantly to shell strategic support for the federal government Gas master plan. As a life plant with commitment from shell to other parties, any modification works must be carried out in a manner that is safe, flawless, minimizes shut-down, ergonomically and maintainable.

These were the guiding principles during the execution of the project and the good result achieved was due to this by the project team.

The project also carried out a lessons learnt workshop that involved NETCO and shell projects teams. It is hoped that some of the documented lessons will be used to guide future projects.