Fives designs and supplies various industrial equipment in the energy sector, with high-performance industrial combustion systems, cryogenic equipment for hydrocarbons processing and air separation, as well as in the bioenergy and sugar sectors. The Group also offers comprehensive and bespoke solutions for industrial piping projects, particularly in the nuclear sector.
Fives has delivered a toric manifold to Cegelec intended for the Ariane 6 launcher.
It channels the combustion exhaust steam from the Vulcan engine during lift-off. Using high-speed nitrogen injection, the torus creates a slightly depressing area under the engine to drive hydrogen vapors created by nozzle cooling which would potentially flow along the wall. The manufacture of this torus required expertise in various areas: bending, welding, pickling and inspection.
Samsung China asked Fives to retrofit the five boilers at the largest semi-conductor plant in the world, in Xi’An.
The project related to the supply, installation and commissioning of five Ultra Low NOx Pillard NANOxFLAM® burners. The first boiler was successfully started up and demonstrated NOx emission reduction: 9 ppm/nm3 @3% O2 vs. 25 ppm/nm3 @3% O2 with the previous burner. The new, more efficient system also led to a 1% reduction of the boiler’s natural gas consumption.
The Group has won several contracts in the air separation sector with Air Liquide, specifically Tata Steel in India and Hubei Saning in China, and Air Products Jiutai, for exchangers and the supply of cryogenic pumps including DGS/Labs cartridges for interchangeable seals.
Praxair selected Fives to supply 30 exchangers offering 100 bars of pressure, used in three air separation units for a coal gasification unit at a production site in Quinzhou, China.
Following the delivery of two Cail & Fletcher multi-tube dryer-coolers to Kristall at its Kirsanov plant in Russia, Fives won a new contract to supply a complete crystallization station at the same site.
This notably includes six batch vacuum pans, four continuous vacuum pans, four Cail & Fletcher vertical crytallizers, fourteen Cail & Fletcher FC 1300 stainless steel continuous centrifugals and ten Cail & Fletcher Zuka® batch centrifugals. This station is the final part of the project for a new plant processing 20,000 tons of sugar beet per day, which should be commissioned in 2021.
Teréga (formerly TIGF), the main gas carrier in France, asked Fives to modernize the pipe connecting Lacq and Lussagnet in Aquitaine (France).
The project relates to the new switching stations, the new pipe connection and replacement of 50 meters of piping. The works at these five gas sites started in September 2018 and will continue through to November 2019.
UTE TGSI – STAR Rafineri AS awarded a contract to Fives to supply a demountable flare system for safety requirements as part of refinery extension works in Turkey.
This 90-meter-tall, 600-kilo flare will allow continued operations during maintenance of the second flare.
In the gas treatment sector, Fives has pursued its partnership with UOP Russel LLC through new orders, and for another major client in this sector, for producing four exchangers, including two offering 124 bars, beyond the usual maximum pressure.
Fives also obtained two major orders for Black&Veatch in the LNG sector. A 400-ton cold box is being manufactured for ethylene production for Mc Dermott-Total.
As part of a cooperation agreement with Guangxi Construction Engineering Group (Yi’An, China), a major Chinese equipment manufacturer which operates in various industrial sectors, Fives won two major contracts relating to the new Kaset Phol sugar refinery being built in Thailand.
The Group is responsible for the design and supply of six Fletcher continuous vacuum pans and 19 Cail & Fletcher FC 1300 continuous centrifugals, technologies which are particularly popular in Thailand for their low environmental impact. This sugar cane refinery should be commissioned at the end of 2019.
Fives was awarded a contract for the largest ethylene unit in the world for the Indian company HMEL.
The project includes the supply of a 470-ton cold box and final assembly on site, with the support of the Group’s Indian subsidiary. Fives has also entered the Chinese ethylene market with the SEI project for Hangyang.
This equipment is used for crystallization. It will be installed at the Guatemalan group Pantaleon’s Panuco site and the Mexican company Piasa’s Plan de San Luis and Tres Valles plants as part of their modernization:
continuous vacuum pans, vertical crystallizers and massecuite reheaters. The continuous vacuum pans will benefit from Cail& Fletcher SMART ControlTM connected technology.
These two investments aim to increase plant production capacity and improve crystallization performance and energy consumption.
Fives teams have acjieved manufacturing eleven FCC-type joints for the GALP refinery in Sinès, Portugal.
The project, which notably included the supply of five carbon steel devices with refractory concrete and paint, and five stainless steel devices, required 13,000 hours of work. From engineering and supplies to monitoring on-site assembly, this comprehensive service reflects a long-term relationship of trust. In 1992 Fives manufactured the refinery’s original equipment and regularly provides expert services on site as well as operating device maintenance.
Fives European Combustion Center, the brand-new Fives combustion research center
After kicking off construction in October 2016, Fives has opened its brand-new combustion research center in the province of Piacenza, north Italy. Unique in Europe due to its size, this center allows the Group to pool its teams’ expertise to develop the technologies of the future and better meet the requirements of manufacturers in the energy and oil and gas industries in terms of energy performance, environmental quality and safety.
Across a 3,000 sqm site, a team of R&D engineers can reproduce the operating conditions of industrial facilities in four test furnaces: a fire tube boiler, a horizontal water-cooled furnace, an induct furnace and a multi-configuration vertical furnace, for total installed power of 40 MW. This equipment allows tests to be carried out on burners using natural gas, refinery gas, biogas and liquid fuels. The Fives European Combustion Center also includes a training center to share its teams’ process expertise with clients and partners. Finally, the flagship combustion technologies developed by the Group are presented in a showroom.
