Rolls-Royce, a global power systems company, has won two additional major contracts from PetroChina for power systems to be installed on the West to East Gas Pipeline Project (WEPP).
The contracts include an extension of Rolls-Royce's involvement in the initial WEPP Line 1 and the western section of Line 2: a second west-to-east pipeline currently under construction. The total value of the orders exceeds $120m (£73m).
Crossing 10 Chinese provinces from the West Gobi desert to Shanghai in the east, the 4,000km line has a capacity of 17 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas per year.
Three RB211-powered gas compressor packages and a single motor-driven compressor have been ordered for Line 1 of the WEPP pipeline to increase installed horsepower at stations along the pipeline.
In addition, six RB211 compressor packages have been ordered for the 2,450km western section of Line 2, which is being constructed to transport gas from the Chinese border with Kazakhstan in the west to Zhongwei, the intersection point between the regions of Ningxia, Gansu and Inner Mongolia.
When completed and fully operational, this line is designed to have a capacity of 30bcm of natural gas per year.
The new contracts increase the number of RB211 gas turbine packages ordered for the original WEPP line to19 and the number of motor-driven units to six.
Fifteen RB211 sets and five motor-driven compressors are already in operation and an additional RB211 set is currently undergoing installation.
The gas compressors for all nine newly ordered gas turbine packages plus the single motor drive unit will be model RFBB-36, also designed and manufactured by Rolls-Royce.
The RB211 gas generators will be manufactured at the company's Montreal facility in Canada, while the packaging of the units and the manufacture of the compressors will take place in Mount Vernon, Ohio. All the equipment for WEPP Line 1 is scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2010, with the six packages for Line 2 due in the second quarter of 2010.
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