Cryo Diffusion has been awarded a contract by Air Liquide for helium valve boxes and vacuum insulated lines for the Qatar Helium 2 Project. The helium valve boxes and vacuum insulated lines will be used on the world’s largest helium liquefier, to be operated by RasGas and installed in RasLaffan.
With a temperature of -269°C, liquid helium is more difficult to store than other cryogenic liquids and requires technical and industrial expertise in insulation technology to minimize losses of this costly product. One particularity of the project, Cryo Diffusion notes, is that the inner pipe diameters were 2- and 3-inch lines while the outer diameter was 16 inches – allowing for extensive use of innovative, multilayer super insulation under high vacuum.
The contract was awarded by Air Liquide, which itself has an Engineering, Procurement and Construction contract for the liquefier helium refining unit to purify and liquefy crude helium gas recovered from Qatar’s North Field. The equipment is currently being installed in the facility at Qatar. Operation is expected to begin at the new plant in early 2013 and it will be the biggest helium liquefaction plant in the world – making Qatar the world’s second largest helium producer.
Philippe Doinel, General Manager of Cryo Diffusion, commented, “We are proud to be a part of this high profile project which demonstrates our ability to undertake complex, special projects that require our industrial and technical expertise in helium equipment.”
Helium is essential to a number of applications such as MRI scanners for the medical profession; in industrial applications for electronics, fiber optics, photovoltaics, leak detection and welding; and in the retail and entertainment industries for balloons. The Qatar Helium 2 Project is for the largest turnkey helium extraction, purification and liquefaction unit in the world. Helium production capacity from the project is expected to be 38 million m3 of helium per year.
