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Saudi Aluminum Smelter Keeping a maximum up-time through rental solutions

April 27, 2021

Thanks to the contingency plan, the smelter was operational again within 24 hours!

Oil Free Compressed Air
Rapid delivery of replacement compressor package saves aluminum smelter $80,000 per hour in Saudi Arabia. The call came in the middle of the night. An electrical power surge at our customer’s plant, one of the largest aluminum smelters in the world, had taken out one of their mainline compressors. The damage was extensive & the drop in pressure meant the plant’s instrumentation – and therefore production – was now completely offline. And every minute it stayed that way cost the company over a thousand US dollars in downtime. In such situations, you need a partner with reliable equipment, available fleet, technical know-how, and experienced personnel to get the job done and get it done quickly. In other words, you need a partner like Atlas Copco Rental Middle East.

Critical capacity

The electrical fault all but fried the motor of one of the plant’s 6 high-capacity centrifugal compressors, resulting in a shortfall in the output of around 18,000 Nm3/h. The smelter’s standby unit was nowhere near capable of bridging the gap. To make things worse: the spare parts required to get the mainline compressor back online would take weeks to manufacture and even longer to install, test and commission. It was clear that a temporary solution would be required.

Rapid response

As Area Rental Supervisor, Waddah Ahmad explains, it’s one thing to have the right equipment available at a moment’s notice. It’s another to have the logistical capacity to transport it and the technical know-how to integrate it within your systems and get everything back online: “Our customer’s first reflex was to call Atlas Copco Rental Middle East, given our long track record of quality, reliability, and above all, agility.”

Finetuning output

To restore the output of the offline compressor, Waddah and his team proposed six PTS 1600 oil-free rotary screw compressors working in tandem with six PHS 1600 dryers. “Our customer took advantage of the added flexibility of a temporary rental contract and ordered the new machinery in batches of two at a time,” says Waddah. “So, they could finetune capacity to the exact requirements of their system. And although this resulted in a complex network of cables, hoses, and manifolds, our team made optimal use of multiple connection points to maximize the customer’s efficiency and flexibility”.

More in the pipeline

The delivered solution worked almost flawlessly over the 6-month period it took to repair the customer’s mainline compressor. We say “almost” because one of the units we supplied also suffered a minor breakdown during the project, although even this we managed to rectify on the same day with no impact on the customer’s operations. In fact, they were so impressed with Atlas Copco Rental Middle East speed and agility that in the meantime, several other projects are already in the pipeline and we are well on the way to becoming an exclusive supplier for this global giant.

When the unexpected happens, we are prepared to minimize your downtime!

Contact us today for a contingency plan

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Atlas Copco Rental. Making agility count