“We came into contact with the Equans team,” Wim Willems explains. “We had a good feeling about them from the very first time we got together. You could sense that these people knew what they were talking about, and we had instant confidence in them. Which is paramount for a long-term and phased project like the one we were about to embark on.”

The first phase involved the modernisation of the control systems for the protection of the storage tanks and the outlet pipes, the high levels, the valves and the level checks. “Up until then, these checks were still carried out in time-honoured manual fashion using relays,” Wim Willems explains. “These relays were entirely converted into a safety PLC system, with the ATVSoft.NET Scada system in the guise of a dashboard.”

Everybody was very pleased with the way this first phase had gone, after which Gasbottling decided to also take on the next phases working in tandem with Equans. “It was a matter of confidence,” Wim Willems goes on to say: “I knew that the projects were in safe hands and that having Equans involved allowed me to focus on our core activities in the meantime. To me that too was an overriding consideration.” This positive impression was also confirmed by the outside inspectorates, which were really happy with the new installation and user comfort, Willems goes on to add.

Throughout the various phases across six years, the business relationship remained nothing less than excellent. “Equans came knocking every so often with ideas to make the infrastructure even better,” Wim Willems cites as an example. “Not all of them necessarily radical, but this did show that they were constantly occupied with the project, that they were putting themselves in our shoes.”

The business relationship was also simplified, as Equans was able to handle all aspects of the project, Wim Willems says: “Laying down the cabling, hooking up the sensors, all the programming for the control system: the fact that all of this and more was handled by one and the same party in itself was a major step up.”

In the meantime, Gasbottling and Equans are now working on the fifth phase, which means the infrastructure upgrade is drawing to a close. “The cooling of tanks, the visualisation of the valves, detection systems, new pressure gauges, etc. All of these systems have been modernised step by step,” Wim Willems explains. “And now we have a future-proof environment, to which we will be able to add new components with consummate ease as and when the need arises. An environment structured in a highly methodical way that enables us to take immediate action in case anything goes wrong. The glass fibre cabling between the pipes and the control system and the software monitoring also make it much easier to add check points if needed.”

The present infrastructure gives Wim Willems much-needed peace of mind: “I want to be able to go home of an evening knowing that everything is under control, that I’ll be getting alerts if something is wrong, but only if and when something is wrong.”
If, in spite of the flexible infrastructure, incidents arise for which Gasbottling does require Equans’s assistance, he knows he can rely on a quick response: “All it takes is a phone call asking them to implement a modification and the job gets done in no time at all.”