News Archive

2013

November
BETA presents two hot topics at the Calgary Pump Symposium, Nov. 8th at the Carriage House Inn. Visit us at Table 18.

October
See BETA at these conferences:
Oct. 1-3, Turbomachinery & Pump Symposia, Houston, TX, stop by booth #939 and see our interactive vibration demo.

Oct. 6-9, Gas Machinery Council 2013 GMC, Albuquerque, NM. BETA is presenting papers, some with customers, and some to do with current research. Our interactive vibration demo will travel to this tradeshow, booth 215.

August
BETA is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Guy Gendron as Vice President, Engineering Services.

July
For a large offshore production company in the Middle East, BETA provided a detailed analysis of vibration on Coriolis meters and skids to ensure accurate measurement on these custody transfer meters.

June
Surge Control Analysis for centrifugal compressor systems provide an easy and cost-effective way to assess the ideal surge control solution. It can also save a significant amount of money - especially if unnecessary recycle valves and piping can be avoided. BETA is fortunate to have Dr. Kamal Botros working as a Senior Advisor to our surge control team. Dr. Botros is a world authority on surge control design and analysis, and has focused his research activities on transient flow problems in complex systems including centrifugal compressor surge phenomenon, pressure relief system dynamics, and transients of two phase stratified flows.

Water Hammer and Transient Analysis for pumping systems. Water Hammer is a transient event causing large forces in the piping system. It is a serious integrity issue for liquid and pump systems. BETA provides water hammer analyses for pumping and piping systems.

May
Existing production platforms off Malaysia, Australia, China, Thailand, and other nearby countries are experiencing vibration problems on compressors, various pumps, and engine-generators. Recently, BETA has been awarded several projects for customers such as Shell, Petronas, Bluewater, Chevron, and CNOOC, to evaluate the structural dynamics, machinery dynamics, and associated piping systems for offshore facilities to identify improvement recommendations.

EGCR May 14-16, Robert Morris University, near Pittsburgh, PA. Attend BETA's presentation and check out the scrubber demo at our booth #34

April
BETA awarded large project to assess vibration risk from AIV and FIV on thousands of pipes at large Egyptian refinery.

Compressor Station Vibration in Pittsburgh, PA with GMRC April 17-19. BETA's interactive scrubber demo is a hit with participants.

March
Several large international oil companies retained BETA to evaluate structural and machinery dynamics on compressors, pumps, engine-generators, and associated piping systems on existing platforms in SE Asia and off Australia, and identify improvement recommendations. Customers include Shell, Petronal, Bluewater, Chevron, CNOOC, and others. Locations include off Malaysia, Australia, China, Thailand, and other nearby countries.

February
Join us in welcoming Ciro Fang, BETA's new China Business Manager.

January
BETA is working with two major oil pipeline companies to identify and mitigate facilities integrity issues, providing expertise relating tosmall-bore piping design and vibration risks.

2012

December
Course - Centrifugal compressor design, operation and maintenance in Houston

November, December
Vibration courses for pumps and reciprocating compressors in Calgary (November) and in Houston (December)

October
Technical papers presented by BETA at EFRC and GMC about mitigating vibration issues on compressors and pumps now on our web site.

September
More than 450 registered users using the free bottle sizing software on solutions.vdn-es.woodplc.com. Said one customer, "It's quick and easy to use and I like the peace of mind this software gives me."

May
Some of BETA's senior staff are part of the instructor team for GMRC's Compressor Station Vibration and the Impact on Cost, Performance and Reliability course, Houston, May 15-17, 2012. Instructors are from BETA, ACI, Ariel, and El Paso.

February
BETA was awarded another conditioning monitoring contract for 8 centrifugal compressor and gas turbine production trains on offshore production platforms (Gulf of Mexico). The contract includes vibration and performance monitoring, machinery analysis, and maintenance recommendations. This program has proven to be a critical component of the predictive maintenance program, which has resulted in significantly improved reliability for the operator.

January
Qatar Petroleum has retained BETA to provide field engineering and design support for a large compressor installation. Field analysis and vibration data is used by the team to accurately model the compressor and foundation, and provide improvement recommendations.

Small-Bore Piping (SBP) vibration continues to be a hot topic due to the safety and downtime risks associated with gas or oil releases. In the past two months, BETA has been engaged to help two major oil pipeline companies and over 50 gas compressor stations. These projects involve field analysis of many production facilities to identify areas where small-bore piping has a medium to high risk of failure. BETA is also supporting these companies with design practices and standards for new installations.

BETA is starting Phase 2 of a multiyear research project to reduce mechanical vibration on gas compressors. This initiative is sponsored by the Gas Machinery Research Council (GMRC) and involves direct support and involvement by El Paso, Ariel, Cameron, Dresser-Rand, Exterran, CSI, Propak, Valerus, Boardwalk and Chevron. Refer to GMRC website for more information on this project.

2011

December
BETA's new recip compressor course Dec 7-8, 2011 was sold out. These courses are proving to be quite popular. Thanks everyone.

November
China continues to be a strong market for our design team and Europe for remote monitoring.

October
BETA was at the GMC in Nashville, delivering a technical paper and a short course, as well as co-leading a short course and hosting a booth at the Exhibition. All were very well received by participants.

Encana invited BETA to present three seminars and a case study at their annual Forum in Calgary, AB.

September
China’s offshore oil company (CNOOC) and its offshore engineering company (COOEC) appointed BETA to address design and field analysis for various platforms.

Our first Reciprocating Compressor Training class at our new Calgary training facility was sold out.

Our field team remains busy on interesting projects around the world. From supporting refineries with piping vibration (Shell), to pump and foundation analysis in the oilsands, to pipeline compressor station evaluation (Williams), to offshore Australia for performance and piping modifications (BW Offshore), to Ecuador compressor installation.

BETA welcomed new and 'seasoned' customers to our booth at the 40th Turbomachinery Symposium.

August
Compressor Station Vibration, a 2.5 day training course offered through the Gas Machinery Research Council (GMRC) was sold out. Instructors from BETA, ACI, Ariel and El Paso conducted the training. Additional courses will be scheduled by GMRC in 2012.

July
BETA has signed new monitoring contracts to evaluate rotating assets owned by Direct Energy, Apache, CNRL and PEMEX. These services include CBM (condition based monitoring), including performance assessments, vibration and other reliability measures. Assets being evaluated include reciprocating compressors, centrifugal compressors, engines, turbines, and auxiliary equipment. BETA also develops compressor load curves for its reliability and monitoring customers.

May
BETA celebrated the opening of the new and expanded Calgary head office by hosting a 'Wine and Food Tasting Tour and Discovery' that was very well received. We had the opportunity to show off our new location and customers toured interactive displays of our services and enjoyed fun food and wine pairings.

April
Small piping vibration is a hot topic these days. End users have retained BETA to assist in Small-Bore Piping Vibration Audits for their existing or new facilities. This new service applies to both liquid and gas pipeline stations, and involves a unique approach to identify areas that have the highest risk of failure.

March
BETA is awarded vibration analysis contracts by SBM, BW and other major offshore FPSO and Platform production owners and operators. Projects include CNOOC (China), Shell Malaysia, Apache Australia, Chevron Thailand, and Petronas.

February
US Pipeline companies continue to modify and expand their compressor stations. BETA has been awarded large projects with many of the major companies

January
Pumping system projects include engineering support for pulsation and mechanical analysis for Access Pipeline's new liquid pump facilities. For BP Canada, our engineering staff provided acoustical and dynamic analysis for various pumping installations. BETA is providing Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) support and detailed modeling support for new pumping assets for Shell (New Zealand). For Oakwell's projects in Vietnam, BETA provided pumping acoustical and mechanical analysis.

Catalyst Paper required vibration engineering support for its new paper presses.

Offshore facilities continue to keep our engineering teams busy; with large projects for Chevron (Gulf of Mexico), Single Buoy Mooring (Middle East), Shell (Malaysia), Carigali (Petronas Malaysia). BETA's unique capabilities in Dynamic Structural Analysis, including both field and design engineering were used.

2010

December
Now LIVE! BETA's Solutions web site. Visit solutions.BETAMachinery.com for useful tools for your design and troubleshooting concerns. Basic Bottle Sizing (Level 1) is FREE! Another tool for bottle sizing in more complex applications (Level 2), a mini pulsation study (damper check), is also available.

November
BETA has developed a new seminar addressing the issues caused by small-bore piping vibration and offers approaches to avoid problems. If you're interested in your group receiving training on this, and other topics, contact us.

October
Our technical papers and short course at the GMC and 7th EFRC were well attended and received many positive comments. These papers will be available on our web site under Knowledge Center > Technical Articles shortly.

BETA staffed booths at three trade shows; 39th TurboMachinery Symposium in Houston, TX, USA; GMC in Phoenix, AZ, USA; and 7th EFRC in Florence, Italy.

September
BETA's head office moves across the city to new quarters. Our new office is at 4242 7th Street SE, Calgary, AB T2G 2Y8. The move went smoothly and staff continues to provide great customer service.

August
Klaus Enterprises is appointed as BETA's Western Canada Sales Representative. Click here to read the press release.
BETA welcomes Larry Foran in the new US Pipeline Business Development Manager role.
Occidental Permian Ltd selected BETA to provide ongoing compressor performance analysis for its large fleet of compressors in TX.
ConocoPhillips uses BETA for pulsation and torsional analysis for new compressors in Viking, AB

July
Imperial Oil's Strathcona Refinery, Edmonton, AB - field troubleshooting of repeated nozzle failure of HFL Pumps

June
As a part of an ongoing reliability study, BETA conducted a field vibration survey at various stations along Enbridge Spearhead Pipeline.
BETA was involved with the troubleshooting of two piston rod failures for Petrologistics, LLC in Port Allen, Louisiana

May
Enogex is the latest pipeline company to utilize BETA and ACI's Reciprocating Compressor Station Optimization service. Pipeline customers find this a valuable approach to improve efficiency, reliability, safety, and operational flexibility.

April
BETA Design staff and Field (troubleshooting) personnel are working on reciprocating and rotating equipment around the world. Current projects include: Epic Energy Pipeline (Australia), Sakhalin Island (Russia), Gujarat Refinery (India), Petrobras (Brazil), Qatar Gas (Qatar), Talisman (Malaysia), CNOOC (China), Formosa (Taiwan) and supporting GE in Mexico City.
BETA presents paper at the Round-shaped FPSO Workshop, KL.
BETA and ACI's article, Reciprocating Compressor Station Optimization Service in CompressorTech2 magazine, April issue. This approach is recommended for new (or modified) pipeline compressor stations, large midstream compressors, or other applications where improved efficiency, reliability, safety, and flexibility are required

March
Spectra Energy, knowing that BETA provides design and field services to support all models of centrifugal compressors, recently retained BETA to evaluate and model three centrifugal compressors to avoid vibration problems. The study identified interferences between the compressor excitation sources and shell mode piping natural frequencies. Potential excitation sources such as flow-induced pulsations and blade passing pulsations were evaluated.

February
BETA continues to be awarded many offshore projects, including contracts in Thailand, China, Malaysia, Angola and in the Middle East. Evaluating the structural dynamics of these offshore platforms and FPSOs is a key design factor when installing rotating and reciprocating compressor or pumping systems. These contracts include a range of design and onsite engineering services including shaker testing on several of these offshore installations to validate the structural dynamic computer models.

January
Consumers Energy, a large Michigan based energy utility with many gas transmission and storage assets, is adding additional compression to an existing gas storage facility. Given the wide range of conditions and challenges with integrating the units into the existing facility, Consumers selected BETA to analyze and recommend the overall vibration design solution, including pulsation, mechanical, thermal, performance and other engineering studies. This work follows on past field work where BETA provided field engineering support to resolve vibration concerns for existing facilities.
In other pipeline news, BETA recently completed work on two different El Paso pipeline facilities. In one case, BETA evaluated pulsation problems in the pig launcher area, which was quite far away from the compressors. The pulsations resulted in a shock wave phenomenon that resulted in vibration and noise problems. BETA's MAPAK time domain solver was successful in modeling this unique problem and providing a solution to the customer.

2009

December
BETA was awarded a large project to evaluate critical production (rotating) machinery assets at three sites for ZADCO, a large oil producing Company in the Middle East. The study analyzed reliability, machinery operations, maintenance, performance, vibration and other parameters. Recommendations included modified maintenance procedures, selective machinery replacements or upgrades, and reliability process improvements. The evaluation included 100 critical assets, including turbines, pumps, engines, compressors and other essential machines.
Onsite troubleshooting and vibration analysis for Formosa Petrochemicals (Taiwan). Scope includes analysis of hydrogen compressors, small-bore piping, and foundation issues.

November
Dynamic structural analysis for Anadarko (Kerr-McGee China) and CNOOC. Machinery design service on variety of offshore production platforms. Scope includes gas turbine, pump, and reciprocating compressor assets.

October
GMC Oct. 6-7, Atlanta. Presenting two papers and one short course, booth 222. New System Performance Model™ with ACI Services, Inc.

September
Detailed compressor performance analysis for Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL)'s hydrogen compressor (3 stage, 5 throw, Nuovo Pignone, driven by a 11,043KD motor). The critical assets are at its Ft. McMurray facility.
See us at the TurboMachinery Symposium, Sept. 14-17, 2009 booth 1322

May
Field troubleshooting and root cause analysis for gass compression equipment for WAHA Oil, Libya and Dow Chemical, Spain.

April
Chevron, El Segundo Refinery expansion - performed API 618 Design studies for one new 8500 HP, three existing 4500 HP, and one existing 2500 HP reciprocating compressors.
China - start-up check of recip compressors and structure on an offshore platform.

March
At its Richmond Refinery, Chevron is working on an Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project - an initiative to help respond to future changes in market demand, available feedstocks and gasoline regulations. In March 2009 BETA was engaged to perform torsional and API 618 Design (pulsation and vibration) studies for four 7000 HP and two 9000 HP reciprocating compressors that are being upgraded as part of this project.

February
Transportadora de Gas Internacional TGI S.A. E.S.P. awarded BETA API 618 pulsation studies for 25 reciprocating compressor packages slated for the upgrade and expansion of various stations along TGI’s National Gas Pipeline Network.

January
BETA presented two papers at the 2009 Compressor Optimisation Conference (Optimisation and Troubleshooting of Compressors and Turbines, in Aberdeen, Scotland: Avoiding Compressor Problems as Conditions Change; and Monitoring Compression Machinery for Increased Cash Flow

2008

October
28-29, European Forum for Reciprocating Compressors (EFRC), Dusseldorf.
Papers: Optimizing the Pulsation Control Solution, authored and presented by Shelley Greenfield; Torsional Vibration Case Study Highlights Design Considerations, coauthored by Brian Howes, Tony King (AG Equipment), and David Pearsall (Dresser-Rand), presented by Brian Howes and Tony King.
Booth A16.
6-8, GMC, Albuquerque. Technology Update presented by Russ Barss. Paper: Reciprocating Compressor System Performance Affected by Dynamic Pressure Drop coauthored by Kelly Eberle, Gordon Q. Sun, Dwayne A. Hickman (ACI Services, Inc.), presented by Kelly Eberle. Short Course: Pulsation & Vibration Control Strategies to Meet the New 5th Edition of API 618, presented by Kelly Eberle and Rich Bennekemper.
Booth 311.

September
37th TurboMachinery Symposium, Houston, Sep 8-11. Booth 331.
This month's Pipeline and Gas Journal features an article about condition and performance monitoring for onshore and offshore facilities, by Dr. Bryan Long. BETA's MAO (Monitor, Analyze, Optimize) program is explained.

August
CompressorTech2 magazine published a series of BETA's articles explaining the impacts of the 5th edition of API 618 for packagers and end users. This series, authored by Shelley D. Greenfield and Kelly Eberle, ran from June-August. See reprints of the articles here: Part 1-Key Changes; Part II-Implications for Packagers, OEMs and Owners; Part III-Recommendations.
CompressorTech2 magazine published a series of BETA's articles explaining the impacts of the 5th edition of API 618 for packagers and end users. This series, authored by Shelley D. Greenfield and Kelly Eberle, ran from June-August. See reprints of the articles here: Part 1-Key Changes; Part II-Implications for Packagers, OEMs and Owners; Part III-Recommendations.

February
25-27 With M2M, booth at the 13th Annual Gas Compressor Association Conference & Expo, Galveston.
With M2M, booth at the 13th Annual Gas Compressor Association Conference & Expo, Galveston.

January
BETA and M2M Data Corporation issue a joint press release announcing a groundbreaking new monitoring and diagnostic service for reciprocating compressors.
BETA presents at the Nalco Conference for Gas Plant Operational Excellence in Calgary. The topic for our presentation is Operational Excellence for Rotating Equipment, Jan 23-24.