Sener: Gate Terminal Wins ECI Award, The Netherlands

The Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) regasification plant Gate terminal, located in Maasvlakte (Rotterdam) has been named ‘Project of the Year’ by the European Construction Institute (ECI).

This award was announced by the Institute during the 23rd Annual ECI Conference that took place in Dusseldorf between April 26th and 27th. ECI is Europe’s only transnational learning and improvement network covering the entire project cycle for Engineering Construction.

Gate terminal Project Director, Mr. Guido Piazzoli, from Techint E&C, and Gate terminal Project Engineering Manager, Mr. Daniel Perez-Peiro, from SENER, received the price on the Award Ceremony that was held at the Hilton Hotel on the night of the 26th, during a gala dinner. Both are members of the TS LNG joint venture (Techint-SENER) and of the TSEV (Techint-SENER-Entrepose-Vinci) consortium, the main contractor of the plant. After receiving the award, they stated: “We have won recognition on the basis of the principles ECI ACTIVE (Achieving Competitiveness Through Innovation and Value Enhancement) that include, for example, evaluation of team management, risk management, research and continuous innovation in the effective project execution.”

During the Ceremony, Mr. Piazzoli and Mr. Perez-Peiro explained the audience Gate terminal’s Megaproject Case Study: this is one of the biggest LNG terminals in Europe, with an initial throughput capacity of 12 billion m3/year (billion cubic metres) and three 180,000-m3 storage tanks. The terminal has two jetties able to unload simultaneously two boats of the Q-Max type (the world biggest LNG boats). The high-scale Gate terminal is in fact able to fulfill the needs of Natural Gas of the whole population in Holland and part of Europe. The total project cost is estimated at EUR 800 million.

In the presentation, they highlighted that this has been “a success story, were TS LNG delivered the plant to the client in September 1st 2011, as planned, complying successfully with the EPC contract.” They also pointed out that “since this project began, in June 2008, special attention has been paid to safety, protecting the environment, operational availability and versatility. This plant has an environmental friendly design and it has been projected for the ‘unthinkable’: for instance, it has a Safe Shutdown Earthquake with a return period of 5,000 years, it was designed to deal with rise of sea level due to global warming and to comply with the latest Safety and Security standards, such as SEVESO, HAZOP, HAZID, ISPS, SVA, etc.”

Along with the plant’s design, safety on site has always been a priority for the main contractors, the TSEV consortium, and it is worth mentioning that the construction phase was completed with one of the highest levels of safety ever recorded for works implemented in Rotterdam’s Europort, boasting more than 2,500,000 work hours without accidents, currently at Low Level A.

The TS LNG joint venture was in charge of managing the engineering, procurement, construction and start-up of the plant. Besides, Techint E&C has been the leader of the building consortium TSEV and also has been assigned the entire project and site management together with the supervision of construction works. On the other hand, SENER participated in the project management, the procurement and the construction works. Also, SENER was responsible for managing the plant’s implementation, the commissioning and the start-up, as well as for the engineering activities.

The success of this Project has confirmed TS LNG position as a company specializing in EPC contracts in the natural gas sector.

It should be also pointed out that Gate terminal was also named “LNG Project of the Year” in January 2012 by the European Gas Conference Awards, given by the organization of this international event in conjunction with the respected publisher Natural Gas Europe.

[mappress]

LNG World News Staff, April 27, 2012; Image: Gate Terminal