We are happy to announce that Mr. Luder Zegarra has assumed the role of Operations Manager within our company. Luder has joined AST Turbo as Service Engineer many years ago. During this time he demonstrated his capability on various projects on the technical, organizational and customer relations level. His new role includes project planning and pricing, assignment planning, job briefing and de-briefing. Mrs. Sina Harder will support him on all administrational aspects in the position of Operations Assistant.

We are sure the appointment of Mr. Zegarra as Operations Manager will be of great benefit to our customers.

To be closer to our customers and to improve our customer aligned services in Japan we are partnering with a local representation. UT Trade and AST Turbo jointly executed projects successfully in the petrochemical world. We are pleased to announce that UT Trade Corporation is supporting AST Turbo in the Japanese market. We trust this partnership further improves our service offering to local customers.

AST Turbo is proud to announce the new representations for Saudi Arabia.

A’Amal Group is an Arabic economic & business group founded by people with extensive oil and gas experience. The headquarters are located in the thriving Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the global hub of oil production, refining and export. A’Amal and AST Turbo both share the ‘customer value’ approach. Together we will be able to provide superior, customer aligned services. The mutual benefits from this combination will be tangible and measureable.

A major Ethylene Plant consults AST Turbo to support in stabilizing the compressor operations.

The equipment suffered from serious speed instability on propylene compressor trains causing operational headaches and production bottle necks. Repeated troubleshooting activities by different organizations were not conclusive.

AST Turbo was called to the site and focused on a 360° troubleshooting approach. This structured approach determined a clear path forward within a short time.

The rotating equipment engineer summarized the situation: «AST Turbo was of great support in developing a structured and transparent solution to our longstanding operational issues».

The structured solution identified the steam turbine admission valve servo as the key element in need of attention.

The upgrade objectives by the customer were simple:

1. Speed fluctuation less than +/- 5 rpm compared to the set-point speed
2. No leaks
3. No flexible hoses (API)

AST Turbo proposed a solution that – in medical terms – would be called «minimum invasive surgery». The concept was convincing in many ways:

• Proven components are retained
• Only problematic elements are removed and replaced by state of the art technology components

This solution supported a low system price and easy to manage implementation risks.

The design allowed a drop-in replacement retrofit.

• No welding
• No machining
• No flushing
• Minimal wiring changes

This resulted in a short and predictable shutdown window reducing the production losses to a minimum:

The upgraded servo was commissioned by AST Turbo engineers within shortest time. Continuous production resumed directly after the first start.

The rotating equipment engineer expressed his satisfaction after the successful implementation: «AST Turbo’s convincing solution was selected from four bidders. The concept outmatched the others by its simplicity and unbeatable economic aspects. AST Turbo promised a lot; they exceeded our expectations by far. The installation of the new components was simplest. The process of commissioning couldn’t have been easier. Last but not least, the speed control capability is much more accurate than what we asked for. Needless to mention that compressor operation is finally under control»

AST Turbo servo upgrade being installed

 

Speed control characteristic before and after AST Turbo servo upgrade

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We are happy to welcome Mr. Kay Solterbeck in our Team. Kay joins as us Service Engineer/Project Manager.

He brings almost 10 years of Field Service experience to AST Turbo. Before joining AST Turbo he was with Alstom in various Field Service capacities. Earlier this year Kay supported the AST Turbo crew on an outage project in Asia.

Given his background and experience he will be a strong addition to our team for installation, commissioning and maintenance projects.

We are happy to report two new additions to our Service Team:

Mr. Manuel Tribelhorn joins AST Turbo as Service Engineer/Project Manager. Before joining AST Turbo Manuel was a Service Engineer for many years at Alstom Power in Switzerland. He has executed outages on many different steam turbines and other main machine equipment of various makes and power rating. Given this specific background he will strengthen our team for the execution of installation, commissioning and maintenance projects.

Mr. Bruno Bertschinger joins AST Turbo as Service Engineer. Before joining AST Turbo Bruno gained decades of experience in the execution of major turnarounds on reciprocating compressor, centrifugal compressors and mechanical drive steam turbines of various makes. Given his background he will be a strong addition to our team.

Onboarding new engineers with tangible experience and adding more capabilities to our team is of great importance to our company. With the present additions we are just continuing our path of building a team of strong contributors to the benefit of our customers.

PT Consolidated Electric Power Asia, an independent power producer in South Sulawesi Indonesia, called AST Turbo to its Sengkang Combined Cycle Power Plant Block I to carry out a planned C-inspection on unit GT11, one of their ABB/Alstom GT8C.

The outage was jointly planned & prepared by the AST Turbo Project and the PT Consolidated Electric Power Asia Operation & Maintenance team. AST Turbo provided the Project Management and Supervision of the critical components on the gas turbine, the gearbox and generator including commissioning support.

Mr Toby S. Kusuma, Power Station Manager of PT Consolidated Electric Power Asia was delighted with AST Turbo performance and said: “This was the best C-Inspection we ever did here in Sengkang, we are very much satisfied with the performance of the AST Turbo team and the result of the outage!” Mr Abdul Mukit Sanrang, Operations Manager stated: “The right engineering decisions could be found in a fast manner and the level of information and involvement was very high. Besides the technical capabilities of the AST Turbo team we appreciated the friendliness of all team members. The open minded behaviour made the interaction with the local staff very easy on all levels!”

The outage was completed within the planned period. The commissioning phase was rather short, all systems returned to service smoothly. The Sengkang Combined Cycle Power Plant Block I GT11 was re-connected to the grid 24hrs ahead of schedule.

We wish all our customers, business partners and friends a healthy, prosperous and happy New Year!