Engineering
Colt Engineering is a multi-discipline consulting engineering company with a wide range of capabilities and experience. Colt operates with all disciplines in-house and uses third parties for specialty expertise or special technology.
Colt has strong technical qualifications and a proven track record in providing safe, high-quality, cost-effective and timely service to our customers. We perform $3 billion to $5 billion of work per year. Our projects range from revamps, debottlenecks, overhauls and upgrades on existing facilities right through to complete EPC for major grassroots facilities.
We have experience in all phases of project development, including:
- Screening and technical feasibility studies
- Conceptual design and development of front-end loading packages, process design specifications, design basis memoranda, economic evaluations and preparation of project justification for approval
- Engineering analysis including simulation, design and optimization
- Basic engineering packages on the basis of third-party design and licensor technologies
- Preparation of detailed design specifications and documentation for complete plant facilities, including definitive cost estimates
- Detailed multi-discipline designs, including design team co-ordination
- Liaison with operating groups to receive input for basic and detailed design
- In-plant modifications and additions, complete with system tie-ins and tight shutdown scheduling
- Project management, planning, scheduling, cost control and progress reporting
- Procurement, construction and construction management
- Field inspection, commissioning, start-up and operator training
Colt's specific expertise includes the areas detailed below.
Process Design
All aspects of process design, from simulation and chemistry modelling through to start and commissioning support:
- Oil sands mining, extraction and upgrading
- Gas sweetening/dehydration
- Sulphur recovery/tail gas clean-up
- LPG and LNG processing (turbo expanders/refrigeration)
- Heavy oil recovery and upgrading
- Crude oil treatment
- Oil transportation and storage
- Enhanced oil recovery
- Petroleum refining
- Hydrogen optimization and recovery
- Petrochemical processes
- Industrial water and effluent treatment facilities
- Methanol, ammonia and hydrogen processes
Mechanical Design
All aspects of piping design including:
- Modularization and spooling
- Stress analysis
- Bulk storage, tankage, mixing and loading facilities
- Cogeneration, combined-cycle and simple-cycle power plant development
- Transfer and receiving facilities
- Material handling
- Steam generation and distribution
- Water treatment
- Pipeline facilities such as compressor stations, pump stations, terminals, blending systems, pigging systems and pipeline control systems, including SCADA with state-of-the-art DCS and PLC equipment
- Pipelines for gathering, distribution and transmission including
- Route selection
- Cooling towers and water distribution systems
- Pressure vessels
- Pumping systems
- Cavern storage
- HVAC
- Fire water protection systems, deluge systems
- Dust collection
- Selection and specification of equipment (including major rotating equipment and drivers, materials and procedures)
- Fractionation (all types)
- Hydroelectric and thermal generation
Instrumentation and Controls Design
- Specification, design, programming and commissioning of PLC and distributed control systems
- Safety instrumentation systems
- SCADA
- Control room design with multiple consoles, indirect lighting and environmental control
- Annunciation, monitoring and data logging
- Flow computers and ‘smart’ devices
- Plant upgrades and pneumatic to state-of-the-art technology
- HAZOP and SIL audits
- Audit drawing systems
- Instrument databases (InTools)
- Burner management systems
- Technical support of operating plants
Electrical Design
- Power distribution (high and low voltage)
- Plant distribution of power and control wiring
- Lighting, heating and energy conservation
- Transmission, substations and switch yards with utility tie-ins
- Design seminars
- As-builts
- Protection and control
- Specialized equipment drives (large synchronous and induction motors), variable speed AC drives, DC drives and specialty control systems, including speed and/or torque feedback (tachometer generators)
- Relay coordination studies and protection relay systems (overcurrent, ground fault, differential, under voltage)
Civil Design
- Site development including grading, drainage, roads and paving
- Railroad tracks, spurs, switching, weigh scales
- Roads and bridges
- Reservoirs for storage and pumping
- Underground storage tanks and environmental protection systems
- Storm and sanitary sewers and disposal systems
- Effluent ponds, containment
- Dikes, bunkers
- Structural design
- Shallow/deep foundations, superstructures, industrial buildings and construction camps
- Towers, flare stacks, feeder breakers (mining) and elevated equipment support
- Material storage structures (solids, liquids, gases)
- Maintenance facilities, washbays and loading docks
- Permafrost and northern region foundations and buildings
- Modularization of process equipment, piping and lifting and transportation of modules
- Dynamic and blast analysis
- Geotechnical and hydrotechnical
- Fire protection
Environmental and Regulatory Services
Colt's environmental and regulatory services are focused on providing practical solutions to environmental problems. Colt provides high-quality, cost-effective services through our continuous evaluation and incorporation of recent advancements in process systems and designs for pollution control and remediation. Services include:
- Permits, licences and approvals
- Planning and management of remediation projects
- Integration with environmental impact assessment activities
- Community relations
- Greenhouse gas management
- Emissions estimating and reporting
- Waste management planning
- Pipeline environmental planning
- Dispersion modelling
Ideas for Innovation and Improvement
Innovation and improvement are the products of a process that requires experience, know-how and breadth of resources. I3 is our collection of ideas for improvements and innovation that we employ on every project.
The I3 system does the following:
- Breeds creative thinking
- Promotes good ideas
- Delivers excellence in project expectations
- Creates effective solutions
- Reduces client costs
- Fosters good teamwork between Colt and client staff
This collection of ideas is a corporate-wide program, with thousands of ideas logged in our database. Colt encourages all of our employees to work with our clients and projects to use this Colt-generated system to achieve real cost savings and improve safety and quality – and rewards them for doing so.
Value-Improving Practices
At Colt, we recognize that the successful application of value-improving practices (VIPs) requires a formal, disciplined approach. To have maximum effect on project costs, VIPs need to be implemented at the optimal time, and therefore must be scheduled and resourced very early in the life of a project. Adequate resources must be set aside, and the activities must be carried out thoroughly. This is why at Colt we routinely use the following VIPs in our project work:
- Technology/process selection
- Process simplification
- Classes of facility quality
- Waste minimization
- Constructability review
- Reliability modelling
- Customization of engineering standards and specifications
- Predictive maintenance
- Design to capacity
- Energy optimization
- 3D-CAD
- Value engineering
Our FEL strategies and use of VIPs have been rated above industry average.
Safety Through Design
Safety Through Design is a corporate program developed by Colt. It is a proactive incorporation of safety, health and environmental considerations into the design phase to achieve projects that are safer to operate. The definition of safety through design as accepted by the National Safety Council is:
The integration of hazard analysis and risk assessment methods early in the design and engineering stages and the taking of actions necessary so that the risks of injury or damage are at an acceptable level.
Safety Through Design entails:
- Safety-conscious design processes
- Consideration and budgeting for safety in project goals
- Integrated safety, health and environmental reviews
Through cost control and better design, the result is a superior product in the eyes of our clients and a step
towards becoming the engineering contractor of choice. Successful implementation of Safety Through Design requires that the project team be able to demonstrate the anticipated value of this Best Practice to the client. Client awareness is the typical driver for implementation. Once the client and the project team agree on implementation, execution strategy should be consistent, clearly documented and shared with all stakeholders.
Colt has developed specific tools to implement Safety Through Design, such as:
- Design Basis Memorandum Checklist
- Responsibility Matrix
- Detailed Engineering Checklists
Through the use of these detailed design checklists in accordance with the gated design process, safety should be integrated with the design process to provide the client with a safer, more streamlined result.
Sterling Rideout, Director, Environmental Health & Safety: Safety in design