GE Oil & Gas Provides Compressor Trains for Mexican Pipeline

Following the completion of equipment reliability tests, GE Oil & Gas recently supplied six gas turbine-driven turbo compressor trains for two new compression stations on the San Fernando Pipeline Project in northern Mexico.

GE received a contract from Techint to provide three compressor trains for each of the two pipeline compression stations, El Caracol and Los Indios. Techint was the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the project. The natural gas pipeline, located in Mexico's Tamaulipas State, is owned and operated by Gasoductos de Tamaulipas, a special purpose company formed by Pemex Gas y Petroquimica Basica of Mexico and El Paso Energy of the United States.

Each of the six compressor trains includes a PCL 502 centrifugal compressor driven by a GE 10/2 gas turbine with an ISO rating of 15,675 horsepower. The supply contract also included related auxiliary systems, design and engineering, fabrication, testing, delivery and site supervision of the equipment installation.

The gas turbines were manufactured by GE Oil & Gas in Florence, Italy. GE Packaged Power Odessa and A-C Compressor, both U.S.-based units of GE Oil & Gas, handled the packaging of the units and the supply of the centrifugal compressors.

The El Caracol station will have an output of 1,013 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD) of natural gas at 1,050 PSIA (discharge pressure), while the Los Indios station output will be 1,500 MMSCFD at 1,025 PSIA.

"This project further confirms the GE 10 gas turbine as an effective solution in the 10-megawatt range for gas transportation," said Claudi Santiago, president of GE Oil & Gas. "GE Oil & Gas has demonstrated its capability to serve its customers in Mexico and all of Latin America, providing full local support and service capability."