Could you introduce Aggreko and your solutions in Singapore? 

Aggreko is a global leader in flexible energy solutions, with power generation, heating and cooling services for short-term or emergency needs in the form of flexible contracts that allows scaling up and down depending on requirements. Singapore serves as a strategic hub for our Asian operations thanks to its good infrastructure and business-friendly environment. We are also the energy provider of choice present at large global events, like the Singapore Grand Prix and various international concerts. 

How do you serve the local petrochemical and refining (PCR) industry?

We work primarily on turnaround and shutdown activities. Petrochemical facilities need continuous and reliable power supply, so ensuring that the plants can have uninterrupted operations is critical. Our temporary power solutions include generators, transformers and electrical distribution systems. Our equipment can prevent costly downtime in cases where there is plant maintenance, equipment upgrades, or power outages. We also provide cooling and heating solutions during such turnaround periods. 

Apart from this, we also do process enhancement: PCR operations often require precise temperature control, so our solutions help maintain the right temperature to assure high product quality. We also offer reactor cooling, which is a niche solution. This allows our clients to shorten their costly turn-around time, saving them significant costs in downtime.  

Another broad area we are present in is emergency response. Our close proximity to the major plants allows us to do rapid equipment deployment and ensure that production is not affected. We also provide proactive contingency planning solutions to ensure clients are equipped for uninterrupted production during unforeseen situations. 

What major trends do you see in the industry?

One major trend is the demand fluctuation for PCR products. In times of high demand, plants are sometimes unable to ramp up quickly enough to capitalize on the spike in demand, and that is where we come in with temporary solutions, to help them until they set up their own infrastructure. 

Related to this, supply chain disruptions, higher logistics costs, and longer lead times for new equipment mean that petrochemical plants need a dependable partner like Aggreko to bridge the gap. Moreover, clients need flexibility and scalability. Some chemical products obtain high prices in the market for short time periods. While clients want to seize this opportunity, it might not make financial sense to make big investments. We offer full flexibility with our rental solutions to enable fast temporary ramp-ups and avoidance of capital expenditure. 

Another trend is maintenance and turnarounds. Production is increasing and so is the frequency of turnarounds, which means higher demand for our heating and cooling solutions. We also see increasingly complex and sophisticated operations, due to the need to increase the yield. In Singapore, space is premium, so the increased complexity of plants requires more temperature control and energy management. We have global PCR expertise, so we bring to the table depth of experience and breadth of knowledge to provide the best solutions for these complex facilities. 

Finally, the PCR industry is also looking at carbon sustainability, especially following the implementation of the carbon tax in Singapore, while digitalization and remote monitoring plays an important role to manage their emission portfolio.  We offer a service called ARM (Aggreko Remote Monitoring), so clients can see the uptime of their power units remotely. Data is acquired in real-time and stored to be analyzed so that companies can plan smarter turnarounds for the future. 

How can Aggreko assist the industry in its sustainability efforts?

We try to offer gas generation whenever there is natural gas available; we also have hybrid power solutions where we can connect a generator to a battery energy storage system (BESS). This applies to situations where there are variable loads, so we can minimize the hours the generator is working and consequently the fuel burnt, and emissions discharged.

What are your strategic goals for Aggreko in Asia?

Our goal is to collaborate closely with process engineers in the PCR sector. This way, we involve them early on and offer greener, more efficient solutions for turnaround activities. We believe this will provide them with a competitive advantage as early adopters. 

We also want to create more awareness about our reactor cooling solutions for turnaround processes, most notably with our recycled hydrogen gas cooling solution, which is far more efficient than traditional mechanical cooling. 

Lastly, we would like to deploy more of our process enhancement solutions. With our global expertise, we can help clients increase the throughput of high-value products, so they are not limited by plant capacity, and they can de-bottleneck and implement quicker ramp-ups as and when required.