The document discusses a bioethanol plant construction project in Argentina by De Smet Engineers and Contractors (DSEC) for a farmer's cooperative. DSEC is building the plant using an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) model. This involves transferring construction risks like schedule, budget, and performance to DSEC. The project faced challenges around technology selection, import restrictions, and tight budget/schedule. DSEC addressed these by using a "by disciplines" rather than "by zones" construction approach, with disciplines like engineering and piping working across the whole plant. This parallel approach aims to complete the plant faster and within budget.

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biofuels plant construction
62 november/december 2013 biofuels international
A bioethanol project in the Córdoba province of Argentina has been subject to a design
and build project not centred on the norm
Keep disciplined
B
elgium-based De
Smet Engineers and
Contractors (DSEC)
is implementing
the construction of a corn
processing plant with
cogeneration facilities in Villa
Maria, Argentina for farmers’
cooperative Asociación de
Cooperativas Argentinas (ACA).
It will produce 125 million
litres of fuel-grade ethanol a
year, 6.5MWe and 185,000
tonnes of animal feed.
Civil works have already
been concluded and erection
works are progressing to their
end, so the project is now
in pre-commissioning stage
and will allow the factory to
start operations in January
2014, as scheduled.
This project will enable the
region to benefit from the
production of valuable dried
distillers grains with solubles
(DDGS) in a country with
increasing cattle and dairy
industries, while the ethanol
production will be primarily
sold to the country’s domestic
market. Argentina benefits
from a mandatory blend of
5% ethanol into petrol.
ACA is a ‘second degree
farmer’s cooperative’,
essentially a cooperative
of cooperatives, founded
in 1922 grouping more
than 160 cooperatives
and 50,000 agricultural
producers. Privately-owned
DSEC was formed in 1990
and has completed large-
scale projects of this kind
in over 50 countries.
Construction risk
management
The most consistent solution
for construction risk coverage
is known as “turnkey” (or
EPC), where all three major
construction risks are
transferred to the general
contractor: time schedule,
budget and technological
performance. On the other
extreme stands the EPCM
contractual format that,
although including the full
project engineering and
management, provides less
coverage to the client. DSEC
is executing ACA’s project in
EPC format but could also offer
EPCM and those in-between.
From the beginning
The ACA project presented
several challenges and the
first one arose during the
conceptual phase of the
project. ACA needed to select
the technology for its plant
so DSEC provided neutral
assessment, product, supplier
and field experience, and it
handled the call for tender
for technology so the client
could base its decisions
on a fully transparent and
equitable process.
The second biggest
challenge of the project came
right before the contract was
signed, when the Argentinean
government established a set
of restrictive import policies
that severely affected the
procurement strategy.
DSEC is structured to
understand local particularities
and, because its project
teams are fully empowered
to take decisions with
an efficient consultation
structure towards company
management at any time, it
designed a strategy which
would minimise imports and
freeze local (volatile) prices.
In full splendor: the ACA bioethanol site

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plant construction biofuels
biofuels international november/december 2013 63
The strategy was
implemented by the following
action plan: DSEC enforced
a local team of engineers to
deal with local procurement,
provided a guaranteed
maximum price to reassure
ACA while allowing them to
place purchase orders directly
to equipment manufacturers
in order to simplify the
procurement procedure
and avoid tax cascades.
The result meant ACA felt
confident to purchase on
its own because DSEC is in
charge of all the technical,
order follow-up, legal and
administration tasks related to
the procurement process. On
top of this, even if ACA placed
the purchase orders, DSEC
provided full guarantees on
maximum price, time schedule
and performance guarantees.
The third major challenge
of the project was to build
the plant quickly and
within a tight budget. The
solution was to design a
subcontracting technique
called ‘by disciplines’ instead
of the traditional ‘by zones’.
Working by zones is easier,
but it is more expensive and
takes longer. Typical zones in
an agro-industrial plant include
things like silos, process,
cogeneration, cooling towers
and water treatment. Typical
disciplines are engineering,
equipment fabrication, civil
works, erection, electricals
and automation, piping, steel
structure and transport.
Working ‘by disciplines’
consists of contracting
disciplines covering the entire
plant rather than fractioning
it into a mere addition of
packages by zone. Working by
disciplines meant that DSEC
had to do the following:
1) Perform a centralised and
extended basic engineering
of the entire plant, rather
than delegating this to
the traditional leaders
of ‘zonal packages’
2) Strengthen the procurement
team to be in a position to
place a larger number of
orders (10-fold compared
to the original setup) by
specialised engineers rather
than procurement officers
3) All fabrications of the same
type were grouped and
assigned to specialised
workshops. The entire steel
structure of the plant was
ordered from one steel
fabrication workshop and
the same was done for
CS tanks, piping etc. This
purchasing technique also
allows tighter follow-up
of the fabrication in terms
of quality and schedule.
4) Orchestrate efficient
communication between the
vast number of disciplines,
since detailed engineering
up to start-up, to make
sure they work cohesively
all across the plant and
beyond each zone.
Those are the main reasons
why only few companies in
the world can offer a true EPC
and assume a single point
responsibility. This technique
‘by disciplines’ is not only
faster and less expensive but
also reduces the risk of cracks
between ‘zonal packages’
(because there are no such
packages). It also ensures
a homogeneity of brands
and therefore cost efficient
spare part management.
The time saving is
possible thanks to the
following aspects:
• Activities can be overlapped
• Procurement can be
started before finalising
detailed engineering
The ‘by disciplines’ technique
was possible because DSEC
could manage interfaces
between processing plants,
utilities and storage units with
an interdisciplinary team. It also
has experience in installing
industrial utility services, such
as steam production facilities
and electricity generation units.
The type of technology used
for ACA’s plant is proven and
has been extensively used
in Europe and particularly
USA. Latin America still has
a lot of potential for starch
crops conversion into ethanol
based on this technology.
But DSEC is looking further
ahead for innovation and one
of its latest developments is
a patented technology which
allows cane-based ethanol
plants to run on starch-grains,
such as grain sorghum and
corn. Such development would
allow the traditional cane to
ethanol plants to run during
340 days/year instead of the
typical 180 to 220 days and
to produce sugar and ethanol
simultaneously. The cane juice
and the one coming from the
starch saccharification can
be mixed, fermented using
the same yeast strain and
run with similar efficiency.
The Admiss process
requires a limited investment
consisting of an ‘add-on’ to
the existing cane plant that will
only by-pass the cane milling
section, therefore allowing
the maintenance of the latter
during the off-season. The
biggest markets for such
technology are cane growing
areas with easy access to
abundant cost-effective starch
sources such as Brazil. l
For more information:
This article was written by Julian
Carbonell, business development
manager – Latin America, De
Smet Engineers and Contractors.
www.dsengineers.com
A diagram showing the Disciplines vs Zones approach of plant construction