ILF Consulting Engineers: Global Engineering Excellence

Engineering excellence

ILF Consulting Engineers (ILF) was founded in 1969 by Adolf Feizlmayr and Pius Lässer.

Today ILF operates as a group of international and independent engineering companies with its main offices located in Innsbruck, Austria and Munich, Germany. Supporting over 30 subsidiary offices throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa and North America, ILF presently employs more than 1800 dedicated staff involved in the execution of complex industrial projects for international clients all over the world.

The annual turnover of nearly 200 million euros is the result of projects in the core business areas of oil and gas, water and environment, energy and climate protection, and transport and structures. ILF Consulting Engineers has grown to offer its clients a comprehensive engineering and consultancy services that covers the entire breadth of the project cycle with applications in consultancy, design and planning, procurement, construction supervision and start-up.

Last featured in European Oil & Gas Magazine in April 2014, the company’s director of midstream discussed the application of ILF services within the oil and gas industry. Business area categories include pipeline systems, upstream facilities, underground storage facilities, tank farms and terminals, refineries and petrochemical plants. During the past six months, ILF has embarked on several international pipeline projects for regions as diverse as Canada and Iraq, including recent growth in the upstream exploration and production sector.

“Over the past six months we have had the opportunity to increase our projects in Canada. Local staff have grown from two to 70 over the past two years,” elaborates area director for project pipelines, Tobias Walk. “We are also happy to have contracts in place now with leading operators in the region such as TransCanada and Enbridge.”

In Iraq, ILF is involved in numerous projects including the highly publicised mega project to provide the front-end engineering design (FEED) for the pipelines of the country’s Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP). The CSSP of the South Oil Company is designed to supply seawater to the oil fields Zubair, Tuba, Rumaila, West Qurna, Majnoon, Gharraf, Halfaya and Missan in the south of Iraq. “We received the contract for the FEED in August 2014 and immediately mobilised our team. With mobilisation during September, project execution started in October 2014. The CSSP project is creating a significant workload for our offices in Abu Dhabi and Munich,” Tobias states. “This new pipeline system will provide 12.5 million barrels of seawater per day to the major oil fields in Southern Iraq. We are leveraging our proven abilities to provide the system optimisation and the associated pipeline system selection including its design.”

As a result of the CSSP, treated seawater will be injected into the aging oilfield reservoirs. This will act as a secondary recovery method to maintain the pressure within the reservoirs, significantly increasing production. The pipeline intake and seawater treatment facility will be located about 40 km south of Basrah on the west bank of the Khor Al Zubair River. Following completion of the system, throughput capacity will reach 24 m3 per second. Two pipeline corridors will feed the oilfields over distances up to 150 km, making the CSSP one of the biggest plants of its type in the world.

The company’s ability and experience in delivering projects around the world allows ILF to meet its clients’ needs even in the most challenging environments. This experience also reflects the ability to remain flexible and quickly identify and react to regions poised for investment growth while maintaining historical support offices. Relating this to the CSSP projects, Tobias points out: “To be honest the CSSP is a challenge considering the additional effort required for security. Fortunately Abu Dhabi is a common operation centre for ILF and the client, with joint execution from our O&G headquarters in Germany. Since the political situation is complicated in this region, we try to balance our exposure risk by operating in more stable regions within North America, Europe and the Middle East.”

ILF will continue to focus on winning contracts around the world. “We will focus on large international oil and gas projects as well as increase our focus on upstream and midstream projects,” Tobias concludes. “We consider upstream, in both onshore and offshore markets, as a strong area for potential growth. Certainly, and in parallel, we will continue to expand our international footprint in the midstream market.”

ILF Consulting Engineers
Services: Owner’s engineering, feasibility studies, concept design, basic design, FEED, detail design, procurement services, construction supervision and commissioning support