QAFCO Fertilizer Complex is the largest single-site producer of ammonia and urea in the world. The company produces a range of products including anhydrous ammonia, urea-formaldehyde, and granular urea.
A leak detection system for the buried cooling water pipelines based on Raman scattering technology has been implemented for the QAFCO 5 Project. The aim of the project is to monitor leakage over 10 km of pipelines carrying cool seawater to cool down cells and power generation facilities at the process plant. Cool seawater is transported to the process plant and back to be released into the sea via a network of buried pipelines. Both buried cooling water pipelines are monitored for water leaks using distributed fiber optic temperature sensing cables and a DTS station including a DiTemp DTS analyzer and DiView software to show results remotely and to trigger alerts into the SCADA system in case of critical events. The temperature fiber optic sensing cable was laying in the ground during the construction of the pipelines of a diameter of 36” to 110”.
More than 10 km of buried cooling water pipelines between the sea and processing plant are currently monitored for leak detection using fiber optics technology with a leak position sensitivity of 1 m aimed to avoid foundation erosion caused by uncontrolled water leaks and to proactively manage the facilities and personnel safety.
