Verallia, considered a world leader in the glass packaging sectors for wines, spirits and food, produces more than 16,000 million containers each year for its more than 10,000 customers around the world. In Chile, the company produces glass bottles to serve mainly the wine industry, using the latest technology available in the manufacture of glass containers in its modern plant located in Rengo.

In order to maintain this leadership, Verallia decided to modernize its factory, which was enabled to produce 240 tons of molten glass per day through the operation of a melting furnace and 2 production lines with 120 tons/day of processing capacity each.

The constructed area of the factory was 4.7 ha, due to the fact that in recent years a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tank was implemented that occupies an area of 525 m2, a treatment plant of “cullet” or calcín (glass from recycling) that occupies an area of approximately 591 m2.

The project carried out by Pa Engineering contemplated increasing the production capacity of the factory to total 405 tons/day of molten glass, for which the replacement of the current furnace was considered, because it fulfilled its useful life, with a new one that allowed the integration of the largest amount of molten glass, and the incorporation of a new production line of 165 tons/day.

To carry out this work, the building where the production is carried out was expanded, which also houses the new melting furnace and the new production line, plus an electrical room to supply the energy demand of the new facilities.

In addition, in the EPCM development, due to the increase in processing capacity at the factory, the expansion and modification of some of the existing facilities was contemplated, such as the finished product warehouse, truck loading yard, cullet tanks, process water plant, LNG storage area and parking lots.

An important point to note is that while the project was being developed, the production process never stopped, consequently, once the new furnace was implemented, the operation of the old furnace was deactivated. Achieving the above requires great planning and coordination of the entire team of specialists from the conception of the project to carry out the designs and define the construction sequence without altering the normal operation of the plant or risking the safety of the workers.

The project carried out by PA Engineering contemplated increasing the production capacity of the factory to total 405 tons/day of molten glass, for which the replacement of the current furnace was considered, because it fulfilled its useful life, with a new one that allowed the integration of the largest amount of molten glass, and the incorporation of a new production line of 165 tons/day.

To carry out this work, the building where the production is carried out was expanded, which also houses the new melting furnace and the new production line, plus an electrical room to supply the energy demand of the new facilities.

In addition, in the EPCM development, due to the increase in processing capacity at the factory, the expansion and modification of some of the existing facilities was contemplated, such as the finished product warehouse, truck loading yard, cullet tanks, process water plant, LNG storage area and parking lots. An important point to note is that while the project was being developed, the production process never stopped, consequently, once the new furnace was implemented, the operation of the old furnace was deactivated. Achieving the above requires great planning and coordination of the entire team of specialists from the conception of the project to carry out the designs and define the construction sequence without altering the normal operation of the plant or risking the safety of the workers.

The project for Maersk Container Industry was executed under the EPCM modality and consisted of the construction of a refrigerated container factory. The construction of the plant was approximately 70,000 m2 and was located on a 330,000 m2 site, producing 40,000 containers per year.

The project, which was developed under a PCM (Procurement & Construction Management) modality, consisted of the expansion of the glass container production plant and considered the installation of a new furnace and three packaging production lines. To this end, the existing industrial warehouse was expanded by 14,000 m2. In addition, the auxiliary systems associated with the main process (natural gas, diesel, fuel oil No. 5, LPG, air, plant water, drinking water, soft water, cooling water, treated water, firefighting water, firefighting foam and oily water) were expanded.

In mid-2011, the management of CMPC Maderas’ Plywood plant requested support to estimate the investment involved in expanding its facilities to double its production, going from 240,000 m3 to 500,000 m3 of panels per year without stopping its operation, and to incorporate new technologies to optimize its processes and the efficient use of energy. This is how PA Engineering takes on the challenge, but with an extra ingredient, to carry out the task under the demands and commitment involved in carrying out an EPCM Target Price.

In the first stage of the project, and with the intention of estimating the investment to carry out the transformation of Plywood, a group of PA Engineering professionals worked on the basic engineering.

In May 2012, the second stage of the project began, the development of detailed engineering in mechanics, piping, civil and structures, electricity and instrumentation and control, which implied not only the expansion of the plant on its four sides, but also the redesign and expansion of the by-product handling areas.  the steam networks, compressed air, fire network, sewage treatment plant and electrical system.

As the detailed engineering progressed, advances began in the procurement, in order to begin construction, all under strict control of compliance with deadlines and Capex and without interfering with the normal operating schedule of the plant.

The expansion project to increase production from 240,000 m3/year to 500,000 m3/year of finished plywood, also included the expansion of the industrial warehouse by 31 thousand m2, expansion of the office building, doubling the storage capacity of the piece yard, incorporating an additional unwinding line with its respective by-product handling area,  two dryers, an additional joining machine, two automatic gluing and arming lines, two cold presses and two hot presses, and in the finishing area, two automatic panel repair lines and a new squaring and sanding line were incorporated. Additionally, a line was installed to provide greater added value to the panels (texturing, profiling and grooving).

Along with this, the pending areas of the original project were carried out: paving of interior roads, warehouse buildings, spare parts, maintenance workshops, quality control laboratory, dressing rooms, casino, operations and administration offices.

PA Engineering intervened in the proposal through the development of the conceptual engineering, estimating the investment necessary to carry out the project. Subsequently, we presented the basic engineering, in which the required processes were defined, then developed the detailed engineering in all disciplines and the management of the procurement of the equipment abroad.

Along with this work, the PA Engineering Environmental Management, worked on the archaeological survey and the obtaining of related environmental permits. Then the Engineering Management developed the construction program and provided the ground engineering, which allowed the required adjustments to be made to the details of the construction.

Orafti Chile commissioned a study of energy consumption optimization to the engineering office of its parent company in Germany. The objective of this study was to reduce the thermal energy consumption of the plant.

The project to reduce the energy consumption of its Inulin production plant began with the conceptual engineering study carried out by PA Engineering. The project included the piping to interconnect the new equipment and the replacement of existing lines, either due to hydraulic or material requirements. Then, basic and detailed engineering was carried out, which included modifications and new installations, the arrangement of evaporators, modifications to existing ones, installation of heat exchangers and transformation of existing ones, installation of pumps and tanks, assembly and/or modification of piping circuits, among others.

A “Grass Root” project was developed in a plant producing 120,000 tonnes per year of adhesive resins for wood panels. The project included the installation of four reactors to produce resins and a plant of 35,000 (tons/year) of formaldehyde, plus all the auxiliary systems for its operation, such as: compressed air system, steam boilers, cooling water system, RILES treatment plant, storage of raw materials and products, electrical systems, etc.  instrumentation and control, etc.

This project passed all the regulations and certifications required by the German environmental, safety and TUV quality certification bodies.

The Luz del Norte project is a solar photovoltaic (PV) power in 478 hectares of land, diversifying Chile’s energy portfolio.

The 141 megawatt (MW) alternating current project is powered by more than 1.7 million First Solar advanced thin-film PV modules, which produce enough solar energy to power 174,000 homes and displace the equivalent of more than 185,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year.

Grouped into four subsectors or PVCS units, each of these four PVCS units was connected to the substation considered in the project through a 23 kV collector. This new substation collects the plant’s 162 MW and connects it to the nearest existing substation in the system.

Albemarle is developing the Capricorn project, or expansion of the La Negra III Plant, to increase the production capacity of its La Negra plant from its current capacity of 44,000 metric tons per year to 80,000 metric tons per year of lithium carbonate.

As part of this expansion, Pares&Alvarez first develops the detailed engineering of the soda ash transport system, whose objective is to take it from the new storage cellar to the ash wetting system. This also included an air transport system, designed by Noltec, with a layout of around 450 miters installed in the main piperack of the expansion project of the La Negra III plant.  During the project, the technical bases for the purchase of equipment were also made.  The system considered structures, pipes, equipment, and a water cooler.

In parallel, PA Engineering developed detailed engineering in all disciplines, with a strong field support component to the EISI EPC project, of the solvent extraction system to remove boron from the brine with lithium.

Finally, PA Engineering engineered install a salt chiller screw in the thermal evaporation plant for the generation of condensate directly for Albemarle.

La Negra Receives the concentrated brine from the Salar Plant and performs, first, a purification process and then a chemical conversion process. This plant was the first of its kind in Chile and began operations in 1984, when Plant I made the first production of Lithium Carbonate.

In May 2017, Albemarle inaugurated Plant II, the most modern in Latin America to produce battery grade lithium carbonate, a high value-added material essential for the energy storage market and the development of batteries for electric vehicles.

This new plant, which doubles the production capacity of The Black Chemical Plant, responds to the company’s expansion plan and the commitment to consolidate Chile as one of the major playersin the global lithium industry and, specifically, Antofagasta, as the epicenter of the technological revolution associated with lithium.

The new plant delivers a product of high quality and added value, according to the technical requirements of lithium battery manufacturers. For this, technological improvements were made including less use of energy and water, and an increase in the efficiency of the processing of the concentrated brine from the Salar Plant.

Plant III is currently being built, which will transform La Negra Chemical Plant into one of the largest lithium carbonate production complexes in the world by doubling the current production capacity, according to information obtained on the Albemarle website.

The coal power plant, with a gross rated power of 350 MW, uses pulverized bituminous coal as its main fuel. PA Engineering developed the detailed engineering in all disciplines for the seawater system of the new plant. This included the collection, treatment and impulsion to the plant and its return to the sea.

The seawater system, with a capacity of 50,000 m3/h, includes the water intake, siphon on the quay, pumping pit (14 x 45 x 18 m), seawater circuits to the plant and return circuits of 2 x 1,500 m in length for delivery at sea.

The project aimed to improve the Evaporators area of the Constitución plant, to improve its operational availability and achieve a stable generation of black liquor with 70% solids to be burned in the recovery boiler. The main equipment has been purchased from the supplier Valmet Brazil. The project considers a net evaporation rate of 325 tons/h of water and a solids concentration of 70% virgin for Black Liquor.

In 2005, the construction of the Spence Mining Company began and two years later it started production, consolidating itself over time as a relevant deposit in BHP’s investment portfolio.

In August 2017, BHP approved the Spence Growth Option (SGO) project, with an estimated investment of US$2.46 million, which was aligned with the mining company’s corporate strategy of having large, long-lived and low-cost operations.

With this, the site took a big step thanks to the construction of the SGO project, which allows Spence to project itself in the long term through the treatment of hypogene minerals through a concentrator plant, which operates in conjunction with the current FullSal mixed mineral leaching process.

Overall, the project comprised a new 95,000 tpd concentrator plant, extending the life of the Spence mine by more than 50 years, and the commissioning of the desalination plant.

The desalination plant, which considers the use of seawater for 100% of the mining process, uses reverse osmosis technology and has an approximate capacity of 1,000 l/s of water and required 154 km of water piping from the plant to the mine operation.

Pares&Alvarez developed basic and detailed engineering in instrumentation and control, electrical, civil-structural, mechanical and piping, among others, architectural design, 3D technology, procurement and on-site engineering.

On January 14, 2015, the company INIMA-CVV S.A. was awarded the EPC Marine Works and Desalination Plant contract, for the detailed engineering, supply of equipment and materials, construction and commissioning of a seawater desalination plant, tendered by Codelco, in the sector of km 14 of Route 1 from Tocopilla.

The objective of the state-owned company was to supply RT-Codelco’s industrial water reservoir, to provide water for its current operations and for its sixth structural project: RT Sulphide’s.

The project developed by PA Engineering considered the design of a desalination plant from the seawater intake to the product water, ready for impulsion. The detailed engineering necessary for the final design and detailed planning of the acquisitions, construction and commissioning of the desalination plant and its maritime seawater catchment and brine discharge works was developed. The maritime works were designed to support at least a future production of desalinated water of 163,350 m3/day, equivalent to 1,890 l/s. In turn, the plant would have the particularity of producing water in steps reaching up to 840 l/s, reaching a production of 2,177,280 m3/month.

The project aimed to improve the Evaporators area of the Constitución plant, to improve its operational availability and achieve a stable generation of black liquor with 70% solids to be burned in the recovery boiler. The main equipment has been purchased from the supplier Valmet Brazil. The project considers a net evaporation rate of 325 tons/h of water and a solids concentration of 70% virgin for Black Liquor.