Parsons Peebles: A Century of Excellence in Motor and Generator Production
Tradition of excellence
“One of the most important strengths of Parat Halvorsen is our tradition for best quality and customer focus,” says Kim Kristensen, director marine and offshore at Parat Halvorsen.
“We have been supplying boilers since 1920 and delivered our first marine boiler in 1974, which means that we have close to 40 years experience working with marine and offshore clients and classification societies. Furthermore, as most of our supplies are more or less customer specific our approach is always with the customers’ need as the main focus, but we never compromise on quality.”
Kim is correct in describing Parat Halvorsen’s experience as one of the company’s main differentiators. The business, which specialises in steam and heat systems and solutions for customers worldwide, has roots dating back to 1842 when Halvor Sorensen started his own business in the coastal town of Flekkefjord, Norway. Since that time the company steadily grew, never compromising on quality or reliability, until as Kim mentions in 1920 it began producing steam boilers through the finest craftsmanship. Later, in 1974, the business provided its first products to vessels and since that time has become a leading player in the shipping and offshore sectors.
“Parat Halvorsen is essentially an engineering and production company that specialises in steam and heat systems for the professional market, worldwide,” says Kim. “We take full project responsibility and prefer to supply turnkey boiler systems that very often are customer-specific and therefore require highly experienced and qualified personnel in the whole value chain.
“We offer qualified guidance through our sales engineers, highly experienced and qualified engineering of products from our technical staff and the best possible follow up from our project managers. Production and assembly of the components is completed in close co-operation with both client and class, either at our own factories in Norway, or through our co-operation partners in Korea. In fact, in 2009 we signed a licence agreement with a Korean manufacturer thus enabling us to offer competitive prices for the international marine boiler market. After delivery of a product we follow up with commissioning assistance and worldwide service and spare parts.”
Today the company provides a vast range of steam and heat systems for multiple markets and ranging from 100 to 50,000kW. Working worldwide Parat Halvorsen counts companies in the shipping/marine, offshore and land-based industry sectors as its main clients.
As Kim mentioned, quality and innovation are key factors for Parat Halvorsen, with the business regularly looking to launch new products to meet the ever-changing demands of offshore clients. In fact, most recently the company has launched a new environmentally friendly, high voltage electric boiler. “We have supplied high voltage boilers to the land-based industry market for many years,” says Kim, “and they are a very efficient and compact way of converting electrical energy into steam or hot water (the thermal efficiency is as close to 100 per cent as there is practically, and theoretically there is no energy loss in the heat generation process).
“In 2008 we developed a specialized HV boiler for implementation in the topside process system on an FPSO. There are at least three main advantages with this type of boiler, in addition to its very high efficiency. The first is that it is very compact, in fact we can generate up to 75 tons of steam per hour in a unit that is six metres high and just 3.4 meters in diameter, with a total dry weight of just 14 tonnes. The second is the ultra-fast regulation. A boiler of this type running on idle can be put to 100 per cent load in under 30 seconds.
“The third main advantage is the flexibility this type of boiler allows when it is used as a back-up generator in a process circuit that is dependent on the heat recovery from power generators. The boiler acts as a large power consumer in the grid and also supplies heat directly to the process, thus ensuring that the total system efficiency remains very high without compromising on critical deck-space.
“For applications where you have sufficient electrical power available, either from on-board generators or preferably from land-cable or offshore wind-generators we see this product as the best possible option due to the size, regulation, speed and the fact that it takes power directly from the 12kV grid without the need for low voltage transformers. In the future when an increasing amount of electrical energy is generated from sustainable and renewable sources we believe that this technology will be the best and most efficient way of converting that energy into heat.”
This particular innovation not only represents Parat’s dedication to consistently improving quality and product capabilities, but also its dedication to the environment. In fact, the business has also recently been working on a special system for oil spills and oil recovery. “The Norwegian petroleum authorities have developed special regulations for operators on the Norwegian Continental Shelf that require them to have a sufficient programme in case of a oil spill emergency,” Kim explains. “In order to achieve NOFO class for offshore supply vessels the ship needs to have a system and procedure available for recovery and transportation of any major oil leak to the sea – so called oil recovery operations (ORO). To ensure that the recovered crude oil is kept sufficiently viscous in the ORO tanks the standard specifically requires the vessel to have a dedicated steam boiler system complete with a rapid changeover steam nozzle package that is used to keep the oil heated above a certain temperature.
“In close co-operation with clients and ship owners and operators Parat has developed a specialised system for this application, and we have thus far contracted the majority of these complete ORO deliveries. The system consists of a specially developed multi-nozzle lance, along with an oil fired or electrical boiler, feed water system, steam distribution system and a specially developed control system. The latest development we have added to this is the all-new combined steam/hotwater boiler, which allows the operator to run the boiler in hot water mode during normal operation and to do a quick changeover to steam mode in case of a potential ORO mobilisation.”
As well as releasing new, innovative products Parat looks to enhance its reputation by attending various trade meetings and exhibitions. This year was no exception, as the business attended both the ONS 2010 and the SMM 2010 exhibitions, and as Kim explains, it was an important factor in the continued success of Parat: “The SMM exhibition was a great success for us. We made quite a few new contacts and have received numerous requests from both existing and potential new clients. And we are now doing our very best to serve them all. We believe that exhibitions like SMM are essential for SMEs like us to efficiently reach new clients and markets and also pick up on the latest developments.”
Looking to the future, Parat will continue to maintain its leading position in the market by focusing on continued development of new innovations, as Kim explains: “We will soon be launching a brand new boiler design where we have utilised a new insulation cladding principle that gives our products a very distinctive and professional look in addition to increasing serviceability. Overall we will continue to have a high focus on R&D to develop and improve our existing products and at the same time develop new and specialised solutions according to expected future demand or specific requests from our customers.”
Parat Halvorsen AS
Services: Heat process equipment