Siemens Hits 100th Recip Compressor Milestone

Siemen’s Dresser-Rand business has sold its 100th reciprocating compressor to a midstream operator. The operator ordered 11 heavy oilfield separable (HOS) compressors, which will be used for gas gathering in the Permian Basin. Since 2012, the operator has purchased 106 high-speed reciprocating compressors from Dresser-Rand.

The compressors will be installed near a gathering system that has 4500 miles (7242 km) of natural gas gathering pipelines that span across nine counties within the Permian Basin in West Texas. The gathering system has a processing capacity of 875 MMcfd (24.7 X 10⁶ m³/d). Two of the 11 HOS compressors will be used in two new 250 MMcfd (7.1 X 10⁶ m³/d) plants, which will begin operating in 2019.

The HOS compressor is engineered for higher horsepower applications, including gas lift, gas gathering, pipeline boosting, gas transmission, underground gas storage (injection and withdrawal), fuel gas boosting, and landfill gas among other applications. These compressors are suited for sweet natural gas services, as well as sour natural gas, propane, carbon dioxide, air, nitrogen, and most other gases.

It is rated to 7200 hp (5370 kW) at 1500 rpm with design pressures up to and exceeding 6600 psig (455.1 bar). HOS compressors are available in two-, four- or six-throw configurations and in cylinder sizes ranging from 3.75 in. (95.3 mm) to 26.5 in. (673.1 mm).