GE Signs $50 Million Turbine Contract with Sasol

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Sasol Limited (NYSE:SSL) (Johannesburg), a global synfuel and petrochemicals major, has awarded a $50 million contract to GE Energy, a division of General Electric (NYSE:GE)General Electric (NYSE:GE) (Fairfield, Connecticut), to upgrade the company's turbines at a synthetic fuels plant in Mpumalanga province. The turbines have been operating at the site for almost 30 years.

The upgrade will take place over a period of 12 months and will utilize steam path replacement technology aimed at increasing the power generation capacity of Sasol, GE Energy regional executive Mark Digby said. He said that by improving the overall efficiency of Sasol's steam usage would result in an increase in on-site power generation capacity, reducing the plant's demand for power from the state power utility Eskom's (Johannesburg) grid. He said that the technology to be installed would also reduce the probability of unplanned future outages and that this would contribute to significant turbine life extension and reduce maintenance costs. There are currently 22 GE turbines in operation at the Secunda site.

In November 2008, GE signed a 15-year service agreement with Sasol covering all maintenance activities for the two GE Frame 9E gas turbines at the company's new 280-megawatt power plant in Secunda that included a 24/7 monitoring and diagnostic turbine performance service. The new turbines' initial fuel feed will be natural gas, but in the future it is planned to use low-BTU gas-flare gas feed, resulting in a further reduction of emissions.

Digby said GE Energy is also engaged in talks with Eskom about a range of available technologies available to the utility, which is developing its future power sector strategy. These include smart grid and gas turbine technologies. The two companies are also talking about coal gasification and renewable energy technologies.

The turbine deal was a part of GE's strategy to tap into South Africa's and Africa's huge investments in energy and other infrastructure, Business Day reported. Nabil Habayeb, GE's President and CEO for the Middle East and Africa region, said the region is particularly important to the company's growth because it is one of the fastest growing economic regions, driven by large public and private investments in infrastructure, including healthcare, water energy and transport. He said that in 2008 the group's revenue from its African operations totaled $3.5 billion.

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