GE turbines, gearboxes and generators will power one of Australiaās largest infrastructure projects, the worldās first plant to turn coal seam gas into LNG.
GE and the plantās operator, Queensland Gas Company, signed a new $620m service agreement to diagnose, monitor and maintain GE machines powering the plant for the next 21 years. The plant will stand on Curtis Island, some 300 miles north west of the capital Brisbane. QGC is building a buried pipeline network some 330 miles long that will bring coal seam gas from the island Surat Basin to the plant. The LNG plant will cool the gas to minus 260 F, convert it into liquid, and load it on seaborne supertankers for distribution at home and abroad.
The LNG plant will draw power from 15 innovative GE āaeroderivativeā gas turbines and generators, and use 28 GE compressors to move and chill the gas. Some 2,100 GE aeroderivative gas turbines serve in 73 countries.
Coal seam gas, also called coal bed methane, is natural gas trapped in layers of coal deposits for millions of years by brackish groundwater and ground pressure. Customers can use coal seam gas for cooking, heating, and electricity generation. Using coal seam gas to generate electricity instead of coal can reduce greenhouse emissions by up to 70 percent.
