Horton CBI, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CB&I, has been awarded a sizable contract for the engineering, procurement, fabrication, and construction (EPFC) of two liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) Hortonspheres by a leading Canadian infrastructure company, for whom Horton CBI delivered three similar spheres in 2018.
The 25-meter diameter spheres, each with a capacity of 8,200 m3, will be fabricated in CB&I’s Kasemphol fabrication facility in Thailand and shipped to the site in Canada as sub-assemblies. CB&I’s Thailand fabrication facility is strategically located near the Sattahip Deep Sea Port and specialises in the production of onshore modules, structural steel products, and prefabricated storage tanks. Spanning more than 203,000 square meters, the facility has the size and scale to offer turnkey fabrication services.
Horton CBI expects onsite work in Canada, including erection, post-weld heat treatment, hydrotesting, external coating, and fireproofing, to take approximately 18 months to complete.
‘CB&I has operated in Canada for more than 110 years, and we are pleased to continue our long-standing commitment to energy infrastructure projects in the region to help unlock additional Canadian export capacity,’ says Brian Goedken, CB&I’s Vice president of operations. ‘Our vast experience has provided us a strong foundation for continuous improvement of spherical storage pressure vessels and their related systems, and we implement rigorous quality controls and safety procedures throughout every phase of our projects.’
CB&I pioneered the concept of field-welding spheres in the 1920s and built the world’s first field-erected Hortonsphere® vessel in 1923. Since then, the company has designed and built thousands of spheres around the world, including liquid spheres up to 94 feet (28.6m) in diameter and gas spheres up to 110 feet (33.5m) in diameter.
