Babcock adds sootblowers to industrial boiler offering
Babcock Ntuthuko Engineering recently completed the acquisition of Diamond Power Speciality (Pty) Ltd and will from now on be responsible for the sales and service of new as well as the existing installed base of Diamond Power sootblowers in southern Africa.
Ian Farrell, General Manager at Babcock Ntuthuko Engineering managing the sootblowing business, says that the Diamond Power range of products and services complements their existing range of products and service in advanced engineering solutions. This includes the manufacture of high pressure components such as economiser elements, super heater elements, boiler panels, headers, high pressure steam stop, gate and globe valves, boiler tubing and piping and OEM boiler, mill and auxiliary plant spares.
Sootblowers are utilised in all pulverised coal-fired power plants in South Africa, and in a number of industrial applications in the paper, pulp and petrochemical industries. Originally manufactured by Babcock & Wilcox (USA), Diamond Power sootblowers use superheated steam, saturated steam, compressed air or water to remove deposits, prevent plugging of gas passes and maintain boiler efficiency.
Sootblowers typically aim high pressure steam at the furnace walls inside pulverised fuel boilers, thus preventing the fouling of the furnace walls with ash and soot. This in turn increases the thermal efficiency of the boiler and reduces the amount of fuel that is combusted in the unit.
First introduced into the South African thermal power plant market over 20 years ago, Diamond Power holds approximately 50% of the installed base of all sootblowers in South Africa.
David Milner, Director Sales and Business Development at Babcock & Wilcox, says that Babcock will maintain the trusted Diamond Power brand, and retain the employees as part of the acquisition to ensure a seamless transition.
As a key service provider in the thermal power plant sector with a well-established market footprint, Babcock is in a strong position to facilitate access of sootblowers to the market.
Babcock also entered into an alliance agreement with Babcock & Wilcox to jointly market B&W’s thermal and environmental technologies, including flue gas desulphurisation (both wet and dry), nitrogen oxide reduction, particulate reduction though fabric filter and electrostatic precipitator, bubbling fluidised bed boilers, circulating fluidised bed boilers, ash handling systems, coal pulveriser systems, boiler controls and optimisation, industrial package boilers, chemical recovery boilers, and waste to energy plants.