Business

Jord CEO Angus Holden says, “It gives me great pleasure to report a record year for Jord with $320 million of revenue.”

Watch a short video report:

In our 51^st year of operations, our team expanded, we opened a new office in Denver, and we advanced some exciting new technologies.

Project highlights included:

• Vacuum steam condensers for a biomass waste to energy plant in Japan.
• Compressor balance of plant modules for a carbon capture projects in the USA and Australia.
• Zero liquid discharge (ZLD) effluent treatment plant for an EV battery recycling plant in Rochester, New York.
• Accessory modules supporting GE’s latest generation 9HA gas turbine technology for a 6,500MW power plant in Taiwan.
• Clean air scrubbing system for a zinc smelter in Australia.
• Topside modules weighing over 10,000 tons for an FPSO in Brazil including the first combined cycle power plant to be installed on an FPSO.
• Cooling water modules for an LNG plant in Plaquamine, USA.
• Viper and NovaCell™ demonstration plants for minerals beneficiation process plants in Chile and the USA.

About Jord

The next 30 years will see massive energy investment as the world shifts from the fuels of the 20th century to meet the renewable energy needs of the 21st, and safeguard the children of the 22nd. Jord is pioneering new technologies required for this transition and improving our existing technologies to minimise their impact.

Our role is threefold:

• design and construct process plant for traditional resource and energy sectors essential to power the transition.
• focus on technology innovations that deliver critical minerals and power new energy solutions in an efficient, cost-effective and sustainable manner.
• ensure our Aftermarket solutions allow existing process plant to run more efficiently, thereby lowering emissions and extending plant life.

We have learned a lot in 50 years. It’s yours to go.

Contact

For more information, visit www.jord.com.au or phone +61 2 8425 1500.

When the COVID pandemic was declared, our JordProxa joint venture was building crystalliser modules in China and the project teams included personnel in South Africa, India and Australia. Remote inspections helped us to overcome the challenge of having geographically dispersed teams and international clients.

A key benefit we discovered was that remote inspections allow us to refer to all the available engineering information in the office – such as the 3D model and P&IDs – at the same time that we are inspecting the equipment, resulting in more thorough collaborative reviews in real time. The narrow view through the lens of a camera also forces all participants to focus on the same small details for attention and more efficient decision-making.

We undertake remote inspections by video link, which involves a local Quality Control inspector moving a camera very methodically around the modules in the fabrication workshop. Using P&IDs as a basis, we check all the details piece by piece.

Watch to learn more from our joint venture team delivering crystallisers and evaporators for battery metals producers

Australia based JordProxa Pty Ltd has recently delivered crystallisation plants for two major battery metal producers, solidifying its position in the growing new energy market.

JordProxa designed, fabricated and dispatched several large-scale orders to site, including an evaporator and two crystallisation plants to lithium producer Albemarle in Western Australia, and nickel sulphate, cobalt sulphate and ammonium sulphate crystallisation plants to Terrafame in Finland. The modular plants are now being installed in Western Australia and installation is underway on site in Finland with the last modules in transit.

JordProxa Managing Director John Warner says the rapid uptake of electric vehicles has led to a surge in demand for battery chemicals and associated technologies.

“Battery chemical producers need a technology provider that can meet and exceed the demands of product purity, with a focus on continued process improvement, to keep up with changing product specifications,” said Dr Warner.

“JordProxa understands the process fundamentals that influence product quality through evaporation and crystallisation. We combine the project delivery skills and global footprint of Jord and Proxa and are perfectly positioned to deliver state of the art plant solutions for ultra-pure battery chemicals at large tonnage scales.”

“We leverage an established network of fabrication alliances and modular design capabilities. This allows us to deliver key assemblies that are tested in the workshop before they are dispatched and installed on site. Our aim is to optimise project delivery time while minimising project risk.”

Jord International CEO Angus Holden says he is pleased the group is demonstrating its technical and operational expertise in the new energy market.

“Our track record over 50 years of business demonstrates that we can successfully design and build reliable plants with tangible process benefits.”

“In 2019, we delivered a nickel sulfate crystallisation plant to BHP Nickel West. This important crystalliser work from JordProxa delivers on our goal of supporting clean energy technologies and is generating a new long-term, sustainable revenue stream. It has helped our group achieve a record revenue for the 2020 financial year, aided by other new areas of business including enhanced minerals beneficiation and topside modules for offshore gas fields.”

For more information visit www.jordproxa.com.

FY2020 was a record year for the Jord group. Pleasingly our growth came from new sources of revenue, such as:

• evaporation and crystallisation plants for the battery chemicals industry for electric vehicles and energy storage;
• enhanced minerals beneficiation for efficient concentrate and tailings de-watering; and
• Topside Modules for a host of new customers developing offshore floating production facilities.

Watch to learn more from our CEO Angus Holden and Director of Sales Dean Reeves

Over the last 50 years, we’ve installed thousands of bundles spanning six continents and more than 80 countries.

Key features include:

• Strict safety first policy.
• Proven quality and on-time delivery performance.
• Round the clock operating capability.
• Easy international shipping access.
• Expertise in a range of exotic metallurgy.
• ASME code stamp accredited.
• Certified to the latest ISO operating standards.

Jord’s Hubei China based project team was well advanced in delivering a heavy workshop loading program as it closed down for the 2020 Chinese New Year festivities. Operations were scheduled to resume on 3rd February. Then came Covid-19 and with it, the Hubei provincial lock down. The workshop was barred shut and our staff were prohibited from returning to the workshop.

This inconvenience was first pushed through by working from home, negotiating with suppliers via phone and email. Brainstorming sessions came up with new ideas to tackle the situation and combat the mammoth workload.

After a 50-day lock down, restrictions were finally lifted. Focus turned to getting its backlog of gas turbine accessory modules out the door.  Our principal customer GE and our workshop partner YMD showed good understanding throughout.  Miraculously, all deliveries were recovered without impact to overall project delivery schedules.

Congratulations to the Jord Energy team for demonstrating a Can Do attitude in overcoming what at the time appeared insurmountable odds.

This sure would be one great hitch hike. While most of us were bunkered down at home under remote work lockdown, 40 intrepid truck drivers were transporting 120 x Jord ACC tube bundles from the east coast of China 7,700 km across some of the most remote forests, deserts and steppes on earth.

Their destination was the northern coast of the Caspian Sea, where Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries (KPI) is developing a propane dehydrogenation (PDH) and polypropylene (PP) plant. The map on the right sets out the route taken. A large section of the journey followed the fabled silk road of ancient times.

The ACCs steel structures were delivered by ship from Dubai and mechanical components were trucked from Germany through Russia. You can imagine the paperwork involved with this.

Our two ACCs on this order condense exhaust steam from steam turbine driven compressors. The biggest operating challenge is maintaining performance across extreme weather conditions. The minimum winter air ambient temperature is -38 deg C whereas the maximum summer ambient is 50 deg C.

Despite the Covid-19 global pandemic, efforts are underway to commission the 90MW Lekhwair combined cycle power plant (CCPP) for PDO Oman.   Jord’s scope comprises an Air-Cooled Condenser and an 11-module fuel gas treatment and delivery plant.   It has been a technical triumph. This was not your average power plant. There were literally thousands of pages of specifications, Shell DEP amongst them, all tailored to oil & gas service rather than power service. and all interpreted differently, by owner consultants and other interested parties.

It was urgent. Really urgent.  Replacement propane condenser bundles were required for a LNG plant.  Our customers systems and approval procedures could not allow them to procure quickly enough.  As a gesture of goodwill to this long-standing customer, Jord made an Executive decision to overrule our own ISO procedures, procuring the required materials on the strength of a handshake. Just like in the old days.

Component deliveries were closely expedited and airfreighted to Jord’s air cooler fabrication centre in Malaysia.  The urgency of the assignment was explained to our work crew, who immediately agreed to work 20 hour days, 7 days week, to meet an air freight window.

The accompanying image shows one of the bundles being rear-loaded into the aircraft. It was a tight fit, with precious little room either side for these 15.5m (L) x 3.2m (W) bundles.  Here’s a huge thanks to the project team, spanning Australia, Malaysia and India, who delivered to our customers expectations on this fast track delivery.

Australia is good at exporting its natural gas – mostly in the form of LNG to North Asia. But lousy when it comes to delivering natural gas for local domestic and industrial use. Jemena is helping to rectify this by developing with Senex the Altas gas field in the renowned Darling Downs of south west Queensland.

As part of this development, Jemena placed an order on Jord for the supply of a glycol dehydration unit (a “GDU”). Raw natural gas is saturated with water when it’s extracted from underground reservoirs. This water needs to be removed prior to transportation down the pipeline, since free moisture will result in the formation of hydrates and lead to corrosion in the downstream facilities.

The moisture is first absorbed by triethylene glycol (TEG) solvent in an absorber (or contactor) column. It then gets boiled off into the atmosphere in a stripper column, allowing the TEG to be regenerated for re-use in the contactor. Jord supplied this package in modular form to minimize site installation work. The glycol contactor column was designed to be shipped in two parts, so the module remained within the maximum allowable transportation footprint.

For more information on this project please CLICK HERE