Pyeroy powers ahead on Medway refurbishment contract

Citation

(2009), "Pyeroy powers ahead on Medway refurbishment contract", Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials, Vol. 56 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/acmm.2009.12856cab.005

Pyeroy powers ahead on Medway refurbishment contract

Article Type: Methods From: Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials, Volume 56, Issue 3

Protective coatings specialist Pyeroy Group has completed work on a £1.3 million contract to refurbish an offshore platform at the Isle of Grain Power Station in Kent, operated by E.ON – one of UK’s largest power and gas companies.

The contract saw Pyeroy’s Environmental Division undertake repair and refurbishment work on the offshore cooling water intake platform, which is situated in the tidal River Medway.

The 30-year-old platform protects the two intake shafts which draw water from the river to cool the power station’s electricity generating turbines and provides coarse screening to the cooling water.

Operating from two floating barges, the specially trained team, including dive and marine experts, completed the work to extend the platform’s working life for at least another 25 years.

This included shot blasting the structure using an environmentally safe garnet abrasive prior to inspecting and replacing corroded steelwork elements and applying a new hard wearing protective paint coating suitable for the aggressive marine exposure conditions.

Since this protective paint coating only protected the upper exposed sections of the platform, Pyeroy also designed and installed a sacrificial cathodic protection system to protect the submerged sections from further seawater corrosion.

Protection of the environment was a key priority for E.ON, so a specially designed and constructed suspended scaffolding system provided an appropriate work access platform.

This work platform was then fully encapsulated to prevent any potential spillage into the Medway, as well as enabling contractors to continue working in wet conditions during an English summer.

Work also needed to be carefully coordinated to accommodate the strong tidal conditions experienced (since the river rises and falls by seven metres every tide) and the heavy local river traffic.

A further complication was the location of the platform being adjacent to an operational LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminal, that imposed a 150 m exclusion zone which included the west end of the platform.

LNG tankers could potentially arrive with seven days prior notice and each tanker took 24 h to discharge their respective load(s). This required work and material delivery scheduling to be meticulously planned to avoid all times when the gas carrying tankers were offloading.

Kevin Marron, divisional manager overseeing the contract, said: “We won the contract because of our expertise and track record in managing complex projects involving specialist protective coatings. We are now in a great position to tender for more work of a similar nature in future.”

As well as the industrial painting division, the Pyeroy Group operates specialist divisions providing marine coatings, scaffolding, construction, insulation and environmental services. The company operates a network of regional offices around UK and Ireland from its head office in Gateshead.

More information is available from www.pyeroy.co.uk