South Africa-based Babcock Ntuthuko Engineering Pty Ltd (Babcock Ntuthuko), a subsidiary of Babcock International, and U.S.-based The Babcock & Wilcox Company (“Babcock & Wilcox”), a subsidiary of Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc., have announced the creation of a strategic alliance to bring advanced, world-class power generation and environmental technology solutions to utility and industrial customers in the South African market.
Strategic Alliance for Power and Environmental Technologies
Although unaffiliated with each other, the two companies have well over a century of experience delivering cutting-edge solutions to the steam generation markets they serve.
Founded in 1867 by George Babcock and Stephen Wilcox, Babcock & Wilcox set the industry standard for inherently safe and reliable water-tube boilers, and today is a global leader in steam generation, emissions reduction, carbon capture, decarbonisation and hydrogen generation technologies for utilities, manufacturers and other industries around the world.
In 1891, Babcock Ntuthuko’s parent company supplied the first boiler to South Africa’s gold mining industry, and has designed and supplied many steam boilers used in the utility and industrial sectors in the region. Today, as an original equipment manufacturer, Babcock Ntuthuko has the expertise to design, build, operate, maintain and manage complex steam-generated infrastructure to meet the critical requirements of its customers.
Babcock & Wilcox and Babcock Ntuthuko support sustainable development and are committed to helping customers optimise their operations, reduce impact on the environment and help meet global decarbonisation and climate change objectives.
”Through this alliance, our organisation’s power and industrial customers will have access to a wealth of proven international technologies that can be applied to address local challenges such as emission reduction, power reliability and renewable energy,” said Thava Govender, Chief Executive Officer of Babcock Ntuthuko’s engineering business.
“Some of these technologies have already been successfully implemented in South Africa, including a nitrogen oxide (NOx) abatement solution that Babcock Ntuthuko and Babcock & Wilcox provided for a large industrial petrochemical plant,” Govender said.
The project scope required an optimised NOx abatement solution for 12 boilers to comply with the National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act, which calls for NOx levels to be reduced to 750 mg/Nm3 for each combustion installation with a thermal rating of more than 50 megawatts. After an extensive technology selection process, the compact Babcock & Wilcox DRB-XCL® low-NOx burner was found to be the most suitable for the given site constraints.
The NOx abatement installation project achieved levels of 651 mg/Nm3, while subsequent boiler installations at the petrochemical plant have reached emission levels of almost 40 percent lower than the legal requirements.
David Milner, Babcock & Wilcox Director of Sales and Business Development for Sub-Saharan Africa, said, “We look forward to collaborating with Babcock Ntuthuko to customise engineering solutions for virtually any complex steam generation challenge. This is an exciting opportunity for our companies to work together to provide steam generation and environmental solutions for our customers in the region.”
“We manage the entire combustion value chain, from engineering to execution,” said Govender. “Together with our technology partners and suppliers, we can identify opportunities to implement environmental and optimisation solutions throughout the various stages of the lifecycle, from analysing how a boiler manages a specific type of coal, to how emissions can be reduced.”
Both companies provide a broad scope of products and solutions to customers. Under this agreement, the companies will provide equipment, advanced technologies, expertise and services for:
- boiler cleaning
- ash handling
- flue gas desulphurisation (both wet and dry)
- particulate reduction though fabric filter and electrostatic precipitator
- bubbling fluidised bed boilers
- circulating fluidised bed boilers
- coal pulveriser systems
- boiler controls and optimisation
- industrial package boilers
- chemical recovery boilers
- waste to energy plants.
