Valve Services for LNG Startup and Commissioning Podcast

Emerson Automation Experts

Some of the largest greenfield projects going on throughout the world are liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants. These huge projects liquefy natural gas for transport across the globe. Regasification plants take in the LNG and convert it back into natural gas for distribution throughout the pipeline network.

In this podcast, Devin Cloud with one of Emerson’s Impact Partners, John H. Carter, and their ControlWorx Premier Service Provider organization, joins me to discuss one very successful project in the state of Louisiana along the Gulf of Mexico. The teamwork between the LNG producer, engineering, procurement & construction (EPC) contractor, and the Emerson team enabled planning, startup and commissioning challenges to be quickly addressed to keep the project advancing successfully.

Give the podcast a listen and visit the Valves, Actuators and Regulators for the Entire LNG Value Chain section on Emerson.com for more information on the important valve solutions for reliable and efficient LNG operations. And, the service provider locator section can help you find your accredited valve, actuator & regulator provider in your area.

Also, visit the LNG Success Podcast page to listen to other podcasts in this series.

Transcript

Jim: Hi, everyone. I’m Jim Cahill with another Emerson Automation Experts podcast. Today, we’re on another episode in our four-part series that explores the role of control technologies in helping drive efficient and reliable LNG production.

Emerson’s valves, regulators, and actuators empower the entire LNG value chain from the liquefaction process to transport in terminals, and from project startup and commissioning to long-term facility operations and maintenance.

I’m joined today by ControlWorx‘s Devin Cloud to talk about how an LNG liquefaction customer gained confidence in the startup and commissioning of their greenfield plant. ControlWorx is one of Emerson’s premier service providers covering valves, regulators, and actuators, among other Emerson solutions. Devin has been a project manager for valve services for over 12 years. Welcome, Devin.

Devin: Hey, Jim. Thanks for having me. I’m happy to be here. Let me say, I’ve listened to several podcasts. I think even my kids have listened to several podcasts in the truck. So, very excited about this opportunity. So, thank you for having me.

Jim: All right. Let’s hope we have something that even the kids can get into about LNG here.

Devin: Let’s hope so.

Jim: So, could you give a brief description of the startup and commissioning services required for control valves, isolation valves, and actuators at an LNG plant?

Devin: I think I’ll start off on this one as saying, for the LNGs that we’ve been doing this in our territory, hindsight, looking back is, we had to rethink what we thought we knew. And so, what I mean by that is, when we start…we say startup and commissioning services. And we’ve done this often. We’ve done it at many customer sites. And our company has done it way before I come along, you know? We think about the traditional flushing trim. You may have a control valve in. It comes with flushing trim or hydro trim. We give onsite resources to go out there and change the trim out to running trim. We may have calibrations. A valve gets installed, calibrate it to make sure it’s working properly. Do the loop checks on it.

And so, all of those things for the LNG markets in our territory, that still stands true. But we also had to… This being a true greenfield project, EPCs that we haven’t dealt with before, an end user that is a customer that’s not…hasn’t ever been a customer before, there’s a lot of challenges that come up to there. And so, while we’re doing all these things of traditional startup and commissioning, we had to kind of put our mindset in the construction phase, right? As the general contractors are out constructing this, how do we help them install valves? And the simplest things. Install valves the right way. How do we make sure that the preservations of the valves, they’re not laying in the yard getting full of dust? And we’re talking about critical valves, expensive critical valves to the process. Installing bolts and nuts.

And so, if you…the general contractor, they’re doing the best they can. And these things are…they’re big, they’re nasty. They’re galling threads, putting them in, which ultimately causes delays, ultimately causes setbacks and, of course, some very costly repairs. And then the spare parts. I think startup and commissioning is also the recommended spare parts that Emerson offers. And not just recommending. It’s what are we doing with the spare parts when they get onsite? Where are they going in the warehouse? How are they being tracked?

Again, like I said, really go back to the drawing board and rethink what we thought about startup and commissioning to really put ourselves in if I were the customer and I’m looking for a valve vendor or a partner, what would I want for them to do? And we can say, we can say, here’s the box that everything sits in. But really, we had to think outside of that box as well.

So, definitely, a lot of learning and trial and error for us. But really, I would say, the biggest thing we learned is offering solutions and options. Instead of us just saying, “Hey. This is what we can do for you,” it’s listening to the customers and saying, “How can we adapt to your needs with our company and the power of the network and the impact partner network and Emerson behind us to do it?”

So, I know that may have been a little lengthy, but just really rethinking the traditional process for us.

Jim: Yeah. I want to drill in a little bit more to that construction part because that’s really fascinating to get involved in that. So, how did Emerson’s Premier Service Provider network become involved, I guess, in the first place in the construction of this particular greenfield liquefaction plant? And what are some of the key factors that set us apart from some of the other service providers, I guess, that could do that?

Devin: Yeah. This may be a lengthy answer, too. But I have to give all the credit…we have to give all the credit to Kevin White and his Emerson halftime meetings that he puts on. So, what Kevin did in halftime meeting was it brought all of the EPC together, and brought the Impact Partners together. And just by fate, I guess, you would have it is, Kevin is talking about deliveries. And one of the EPC guys was on a Teams call. So, this was about 2020, 2021. So, during the time of COVID, right? A lot of Teams calls. And this one guy kept talking a lot on the Teams call. A lot. And he was from the EPC. And so, I just sent him a direct message. I said, “Who are you? What do you do?” Just as maybe a Hail Mary almost, saying, like, I’m trying to get on site here. So, it turns out that that guy was head of construction for the EPC.

The very next day after that halftime meeting, we had the EPC and we had the end user in our local shop in Southwest Louisiana, talking about… One of the things they told us, they said, “We’ve built LNG sites all over the world. We’ve never had a valve company local willing to help us.” And I think it was probably because maybe they just didn’t know or maybe it was a lot of people like me. Even our competitors like me looking on the outside in, wondering how you get in there. But really, that halftime meeting that Kevin White and the Emerson team set up, all the success that we’re having today for LNG and not just the startup and commissioning services, but the run and maintain has all pivoted from that point from the halftime meeting. So, I can’t stress enough how…the importance…what that’s been to our success.

Jim: Well, that sounds like a great story and the spark to get that collaboration that’s really going there. I guess, can you tell me more? So, once you’re involved in this collaboration with the EPCs and the customer, can you describe some more about the challenges each of them face as part of this huge project?

Devin: Sure. Probably like most projects, they have a deadline. And if you don’t hit the deadline, that costs money some way, whether that be it’s going to cost you additional money for the construction process or maybe that’s lost product that you had expected to get. So, really, the speed of response and the speed of solutions was really our biggest challenge to overcome for this. Even on parts that were delivered on time and made it to the site, you have to think 10,000 plus people working in a remote area, one highway in, one highway out. There’s not many places to store things. And so, parts were getting lost, and valves were getting lost, big valves were getting lost, or misplaced. I can’t say lost. Misplaced.

And then it’s trying to work with the EPCs. And we had EPCs that was in different territories that was all supplying valves or parts to the site. Working with them, getting a bill of sale, right? Here’s the shipment. What all was included in it? For our people, that was boots on the ground, going and putting their eyes on it, trying to bring it to a safe place, making sure that all the parts, if it come in multiple crates, they were all at the same place. And so, that was a challenge.

But I also think that having the support of the network, having Emerson’s backing where we can pick up the phone and call our partners and say, “Hey. What was in this crate? Can you send it to me?” And then being that middleman for the end user and the customers and just saying, “Hey. We shipped it. It’s on site. You signed for it. Here’s the guy’s name that signed for it. It’s up to you now.” We, as a partner, trusted adviser, really trying to go above and beyond, locating these things for them, trying to help manage the things that was ultimately probably their responsibilities. But it was easier for us to do it. And that brought a lot of value to it.

So, I would say, the biggest challenge on that, Jim, is just really speed of response. As soon as they needed something, they needed to commission a line or a system, we had to have all the parts installed. They need to be installed correctly. We had to ensure that the hydro tests were done. We had to ensure that the trim was the right trim. We had to ensure that the valves, actuators were all set up properly, and just give them the confidence that whenever they hit the button to turn it on, that everything was going to work like it was supposed to.

Jim: Wow. That sounds like pretty deep collaboration down to having to track down parts and valves and stuff on a big, huge facility. So, what would you attribute, I guess, that close working…but what really made that relationship successful among all the parties throughout the project?

Devin: Yeah. I think the biggest success on that is we had to turn the EPC into someone they could trust. What I mean by that was…is… If we were in a meeting on site and something had come up, I’m just going to say, “Hey. We need x, y, z valve. The parts for it, we can’t find it. And it needs to be in, installed and commissioned by tomorrow.” When we left that meeting, it was us trying to find a solution, and then it was 20 other engineers they had in the room trying to find a solution.

And so, by us coming and not just… Well, first, we had to give a solution, right? And then we had to give a solution that met their timeframe, but was also bringing options as well, saying, “Hey. Here’s a good, better, and best path. The best path is this, but here’s the good.” And so, we had to beat… And again, I’ll go back to speed of response. We had to beat their own people trying to find a solution. And we had to give them options so they could make the best decision for them.

And so, I’ll make one key point in all of this to end. Little did we know at the time, but the guy that was on the Teams call that ended up being our champion from the EPC, that was the guy in his team that we had to win over for the trusted adviser. He ended up being the end user. So, he switched hats. And he went over to corporate end user, which at that point, it’s, “Hey. These people are my go-to people.” The Impact Partner has saved us this many times. This is how much money they saved us.

But really, ultimately leading up to that and those successes was, I think, too, is getting those people to the shop. Getting them up to our local shop, meeting not just the sales team, meeting the operations team, meeting the technicians that was going to work on their things, meeting the inside sales and support team. I think that was a huge success and the collaboration is it wasn’t just me. It wasn’t just my sales partner. It was everyone involved. And everyone involved was bought into the messaging and into the idea of this is a new customer for us. They could be very good for us in the long term. We’re going to put our best foot forward.

Again, the success on that wasn’t just the sales team and the sales effort. It was truly a combined effort from the company, from our company and from the Impact Partner network and the Emerson network as well.

Jim: Yeah. It sounds like those broad relationships established because there’s a million things that can come up and go wrong in a project that paid dividends and really fostered that great collaboration.

Devin: Sure. Every day.

Jim: I understand that the Premier Service Provider network helped this customer well beyond the installation commissioning phase, design phase for that matter, including suggested maintenance plan for after the plant was running. Could you explain a little more about key components of that maintenance plan?

Devin: Sure. And I think this opportunity that we have and that we’re doing now… And I’ll explain about what it is. But really, we wouldn’t have this opportunity if we didn’t do such a good effort and our best foot forward on the startup and commissioning side of it. So, that really built trust and goodwill.

This being, of course, a greenfield project and a new customer, there were no procedures for them to follow. There’s no maintenance practices. There’s no PM [preventive maintenance] best practices in place. Once they started up and they’re loading a boat of LNG, it’s, hey, things are starting to break now. Very quickly. And so, any time a project is built so quickly, it’s procured & engineered from all around the world, there’s a lot of white label valves and actuators that you get out there that you have to work on, you have to get started up. But when you start running, you start to have a lot of issues with these things very quickly.

And so, from the startup and commissioning phase of it, we never left site. And the site allow us to go in and have the conversation with them and saying, “Hey. We’re good at this. This is what we do on every day. We can make your valves and actuators reliable. And here’s what a best in class looks like.” I thought that was going to be a very hard sale. But like I said, after the startup and commissioning success, those conversations were very easily had. The customer bought into it very easily.

Now, the doing and implementing of course is not as easy as the selling piece on it. They’ve allowed us to put a base plan in place, of developing maintenance strategies, and doing a lot of diagnostics and preventative maintenance and reliability type solutions in order to say, “Hey. On these set of valves, these set of actuators and this system, here’s what a PM, preventative maintenance structure should look like.” And given it’s kind of the lead way to work with them of being evergreen.

So, we did tell them. So, we may not get it right on the first pass. But as a partner, I think we can get it right together. And then that led into a little bit more. That led into, “Hey. We want you to start looking at our spare parts strategy. Because we have one, but we don’t know if it’s the best.” And so, that led us into having on site project manager, crews both from all crafts. Whether it be isolation actuation, control valves or pressure management, we have crews on site that’s nested, embedded into their maintenance facility, their maintenance shops. We have offices there. So, it’s just like we’re one of them now. So, it’s still evergreen. We’re still learning from it. It’s still growing, but the customer is very happy. And we’re happy to have a customer like that as well.

Jim: Yeah. A cryogenic project, that’s such a tough, challenging process. It’s got to be so hard on all the assets. So, it sounds like all the diagnostics that you can get to put it to use and have that preventative plan in place to keep the production rolling there. So, it sounds like that was a real good deal for them to drive the reliability that they sought there.

Devin: Yes, sir. Absolutely.

Jim: I saw a quote from this customer that said, and I quote, “The Premier Service Provider network delivered tailored solutions that perfectly aligned with our needs, collaborating closely with our team and the EPC. Their expertise extended beyond installation, helping us build a reliable long-term maintenance strategy for our plant.” That’s a pretty impressive quote. Can you explain why overall this was so positive?

Devin: Sure. It wasn’t done overnight, Jim. You don’t get that kind of thing overnight. So, we go back to, I guess, mention the halftime meeting in early 2020, mid-2020. The same person that we’re dealing with on the construction side now is the same person that we’ve developed a four-year history with of just him throwing out so many problems, and his team throwing out so many problems. And I’d like to say we’re successful with every one of them. But we did. We were always there. We always answered the phone. We blanketed the account, the site with a presence.

I’m not going to name all of our people. There are so many people from the John H. Carter ControlWorx team that was just there all the time, ready to execute, ready to do something. Nights, weekends, it didn’t matter.

And I think, over a long period of time, those type of goodwill and actions and willing to…what’s the right thing here? It’s really willing to go above and beyond. But just you never knew what the customer is going to throw you. You never knew it. And our team had never…they never said, “Hey. Look. That’s not my job. I’m not going to do that.” But I think the longevity of that has built the relationship to where it is now, to where this is a customer that I could call up right now and say, “Hey. Give me some information on this,” or, “Hey. I want to come on site tomorrow and talk about this,” and they’re going to say, “Yeah. Absolutely.” We’ve earned that trust.

Now, keeping that trust, we have to…it’s the same message. We have to continue to keep a foot on the gas. Anytime we look at it or we look at it as a burden when the phone rings at 9:00 at night or we’re about to walk into church on Sunday, we used to look at it as a burden. They could easily go down the street and find someone else. Just always being there for them, I think, has earned us that right. To get a quote like that from a customer, it’s something to be proud of. And we are very proud of it.

Jim: Yeah. It sounds like it’s the accumulation of being there, challenge by challenge, a huge greenfield project. There’s a million things that can go wrong. And it’s just being part of that team to make it happen. So, I can see how that trust has been built. And like you said, you got to keep going day in and day out to keep that trust. That’s an important thing.

Devin: That’s right. Yes, sir.

Jim: So, let’s start winding things down a little bit. So, what lessons can LNG producers learn from this case about selecting their service providers and planning for commissioning?

Devin: So, I would say that them understanding the power of the network. Our Emerson and impact partner network, it goes far beyond what any others can offer. And we say this a lot amongst ourselves. We say, there’s no one else that can do the things that we can do, that can offer the services, the products. They don’t even come close to the things that we can do. They may do one thing, they maybe do two things, but nothing near. If you put all of our tools and all of our skills and all of our trades in the box, there’s nothing that compare to it.

So, just by understanding that… That’s a broad statement. For someone to really understand it, I think they would have to live it. And whenever problems are risen to the top, the network is the best place to help solve those problems. When LNG producers have problems, it’s companies like ours, it’s companies like the Emersons that have been in the business a very long time that we know the customers a long… we know the products, we know the processes. And even the LNG markets are still…they’ve been around for a while. But there’s a big boom for them. We’re still learning. So, the ones that we’re building here in Louisiana, you can bet that the network is learning from those things. So, we don’t have to start from scratch when the next one is being built.

We’re specialists in the valve world and in the actuation world. And we’ve learned this from the couple that we’re doing now for the startup and commissioning is you can go get cheap labor to install your valves, to set up your valves. But if you got the mindset a valve is a valve, then you’re probably going to get bit in the butt at some point in time on it because these are highly engineered, specifically designed valves for this specific application.

And so, I think that’s probably the biggest advice going forward is really the network. And the network just continues to learn from each other. And then our people are trained. They’re highly trained. Our engineers are very good at what they do. And so, I think you mix those two things together, you’re going to be successful with it. I think that’s the best outcome you could get and ask for.

Jim: Yeah. I think the learnings from the services network just in doing these kind of projects, that’s shared among the network and even on the technology front like our first podcast in this series was about some of the critical valves in there for that cooling process, the JT control valves in there. So, that’s the kind of thing the experience that not only in the services, but goes into the technologies that we can bring for this industry. And it is something. Right now, it’s growing. And a lot of greenfield projects going on there.

Devin: Yes, sir.

Jim: That’s, I think, a great kind of summation of all that. So, I guess, finally, where can our listeners go to learn more about some of the things we’ve discussed?

Devin: Right. They can go to Emerson.com/LNGvalves. And if they’re like me, they’ll get their kids involved and listen to these podcasts. So, thank you, Jim. I’ve enjoyed this.

Jim: Well, Devin, I really appreciate you coming on, sharing your expertise, telling us some of those stories, very engaging here. And I know there’s also…you can go to Emerson.com/ValveServices for more about the whole services aspect of what we can bring. So, thank you so much for joining us today, Devin.

Devin: All right, Jim. Thank you.

-End of transcript-