By Lucien Joppen
Ayo Kilani is the Mechanical Static Equipment Subject Matter Expert for Nigeria LNG Limited, a company incorporated as a limited liability company to harness Nigeria’s vast natural gas resources and produce liquified natural gas (LNG) and natural gas liquids (NGLs) for export.
With global demand for LNG growing and several African nations (Nigeria, Cameroon, Angola etc.) being very active in (offshore) oil and gas exploitation, the continent is likely to play a more active role on the global stage. With Kilani, representing one of the bigger LNG companies in Africa, Valve World has managed to get a subject matter expert on board who is also knowledgeable on the energy market.
More Reliable
In 2019, Valve World interviewed Kilani regarding various topics within NLNG. One of these topics is worker and environmental safety. Although NLNG indicates its HSE-performance has improved significantly over the past years, the company still sees room for improvement. To guarantee safe working conditions, related equipment – valves included – needs to be more reliable.
In his role, Kilani has accountability for engineering assurance, integrity and developing life cycle strategies for these critical devices. In NLNG’s business, the magnitude and dimensions are in the range of 40,000 + actuated and manual valves. Pressure vessels, heat exchangers, other piping items/supports, and marine loading arms are also covered under his remit.
“The key task and challenge of my highly experienced team remains the establishment of robust programs and strategies which are aligned to delivering overall business objectives on safety, utilization, availability and reliability,” he says.
Health Status Valve Park
The ‘health status’ of NLNG’s valve park is vital to Kilani and his team. Approximately 5,000 actuated valves and 38,000 manual valves, including pressure relief and non-return valves, are installed in NLNG’s plant complex. Given the age of some of its assets, NLNG experiences some challenges related to valves.
Kilani: “The NLNG Plant complex has been in operation for about 20 years and some valve failures that resulted in production losses were experienced in recent years. The dominant failure modes on the actuated valves are associated with the instrumentation accessories on the valves, which fail after several years in operation, e.g. air regulators, valve positioners, and SOVs. We have also experienced other failures regarding the hard parts (trim assembly, stem, and bushings). Some failures were age-related, and others random.”
Transition
To address the above issues, Kilani’s team developed a valve maintenance strategy for safety and production-critical actuated valves and, subsequently, accompany the implementation of the strategy by the maintenance team. “This campaign is still ongoing, but we have seen significant benefits from the exercise with about 50% reduction in production losses from critical actuated valve failures.”
According to Kilani, the strategy mentioned above involves mostly the implementation of time-based maintenance. However, the company has commenced pilot studies to transition to a condition-based maintenance strategy. “We are testing solutions proposed by some OEMs on a few critical valves before deciding on one and scaling up. This is intended to monitor deterioration in the different valve assembly components to enable us to identify the onset of failures and plan interventions before total failures that disrupt operations occur.”
Smart Instrumentation
To facilitate condition-based maintenance, NLNG is installing smart instrumentation accessories and plans to incorporate other technologies that will enable the site to monitor and predict the conditions of critical actuated valves for a more strategic lifecycle approach to valve management. “We are also finalizing a similar maintenance strategy to improve the reliability of manual valves that are installed in our plant complex.”
Other focus areas regarding valves include the reduction of fugitive emissions, e.g., gland packings and lead time/availability of spare parts for valves maintenance, considering the remote location of the plant in Bonny Island.
Kilani: “The following strategies are critical: a strategic direction to deliver reliability of actuated and manual valves installed in the plant complex and, secondly, the development and implementation of the emissions/leak reduction strategy.”
Dedicated Team
The last issue is high on the company’s agenda, Kilani says, and the company is certified to ISO 14001-2015 (Environmental Management system) and ISO 50001-2011 (Energy Management system). “We are committed to protecting the environment and use materials and energy in an efficient manner as stated in our HSE-policy. HSE is managed as a critical business activity, and there is a strong focus and strategy to reduce emissions and leaks in the plant. Our safety slogan on this is ‘Zero means zero’, meaning zero incidents, zero leaks.”
Besides attending to existing equipment, Kilani and his team also provide support on new project development. For the near future, Train 7 is in the pipeline as the shareholders of the company took FID on the project in December, 2019. This expansion project, when completed, is expected to increase the LNG production output of the complex from 22 million tons per annum to 30 MPTA.
Reliable, Integrity and Available
Regarding the involvement in procurement for the operating plant, Kilani’s team provides engineering specifications for valves that are procured for maintenance activities. “The specifications are in line with design engineering practice, industry standards, and local regulations where applicable. The top three items of importance to us when it comes to valves management are: a reliable performance, integrity and the availability of spare parts for maintenance in life cycle.”
Chairman Valve World Conference 2020
Valve World spoke briefly with Ayo Kilani on his chairmanship of the Valve World Conference 2020.
First of all, your reaction to the chairmanship of the event?
“I was pleasantly surprised to receive the news of my nomination to chair the Valve World Conference 2020. I attended the conference for the first time in 2016, following a recommendation by a valve subject matter expert who works for one of our shareholder companies. Prior to that time, I had led a team in my current organisation to develop a valve maintenance strategy for our critical valves and felt the need for other insights to further shape the strategy for flawless implementation.”
What can you bring to the conference?
“Hands-on experience working with OEMs and maintenance contractors from an end user perspective in developing a fit-for-purpose valve maintenance strategy to improve plant reliability and minimise occurrences of leaks and fugitive emissions. I recollect views expressed by some participants from previous conferences that I attended on the importance of regular quality feedback from end-users in the industry to drive innovations and improvement in the life cycle performance of the various products.”
What are your expectations from the event?
“A key expectation for me at this year’s conference is for participants to showcase products, services and to share insights to help the various businesses achieve lower CAPEX and OPEX in the face of the significant drop in oil and gas prices in the international market.”
Which topics should be discussed from a LNG standpoint?
“I would like the following topics to be discussed from the LNG/gas industry standpoint: condition based maintenance/monitoring of on-off and control valves, fugitive emissions, design/maintenance perspectives, the replacement of valves instrumentation accessories online without disruptions to valve function, solutions to free stuck valves/replace without impact on production, the reduction of cost of ownership, and motor operated valves and hydraulic operated valves reliability/maintenance.”
More information on the Valve World Conference: www.valveworld.net/vw2020/