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PIC Turbine Services’ Record Setting Completion of Outages

Posted on Sunday, July 1st, 2007

ATLANTA (July 1, 2007) – The PIC Companies Turbines Services Division successfully completed four hot-gas-path inspections on GE Frame 7FA gas turbines at the Gila River Power Station. The Gila River Power Station is located in southwestern Maricopa County in the town of Gila Bend, Arizona, which is about 70 miles southwest of Phoenix and 30 miles south of the Palo Verde trading hub. The plant is owned and operated by the Entegra Power Group, and consists of eight GE Frame 7FA combustion turbines with inlet air fogging, eight Alstom heat recovery steam generators (HRSG) with supplemental duct-firing and four GE single case, single flow axial exhaust condensing steam turbines. PIC Turbine Services mobilized to the site in January of 2007, and the work is expected to be completed in late February.

The plant is a combined cycle facility which consists of eight (8) GE 7 FA combustion turbines and four (4) GE D-11 steam turbines for a combined nominal output of 2200 megawatts.

The opportunity was based on an established relationship between PIC Turbine Services management team and Entegra Powers, project management group. Entegra was in the process of making the decision to move away from using the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) to perform scheduled outage work. Entegra was seeking a cost effective/value added alternative to using the OEM and made the decision to contract PIC Turbine Services to execute a series of modified Hot Gas Path (HGP) inspections. Two of these inspections were scheduled and commenced in January of 2007 and were followed by two more HGP inspections scheduled for February.

All four inspections went very well and were accomplished ahead of schedule which allowed a fifth unscheduled outage to be performed. The fifth outage was on Unit # 1A and required lifting of the upper half turbine casing to allow first stage turbine blades to be changed out. This work, which was previously done by OEM technicians, was accomplished using PIC turbine blade technicians for the first time at the facility.

At the peak of the work at Gila River, PIC Turbine Services had a combined work force of approximately fifty personal including supervisors, technicians and qualified craftsmen executing at a very high level of proficiency. Due to the success in execution of the outage PIC Turbine Services has received several other inquiries for Frame 7 work.
In May and June of this year, PIC was contracted to perform the replacement of the R-0 compressor blades on four (4) of the combustion turbines using PIC supervision, craft people and turbine blade technicians. The R-0 blade change outs also went very well which has allowed PIC to continue in negotiations with Entegra to forge a long term agreement to provide labor and supervision for many of the scheduled major projects.

A true measure of the success at Gila Bend is evidenced in the “Letters of Acknowledgement” that were received from Entegra Vice President, John Duff and President and Chief Operating Officer, Michael Schuyler. The letters recognized the quality and benefit of using PIC and also praised the level of professionalism and co-operation with plant staff demonstrated by PIC personnel at their facility.

PIC Turbine Services management team can be credited with drawing on their total experience to provide the leadership, technical expertise and relationships with qualified people that are allowing continued success at the Gila River site.

The PIC Companies, headquartered in Marietta (Atlanta), Georgia and established in 1988, is a leader in providing global service solutions to the energy industry. Offering full third party O&M and outage services, turnkey commissioning, startup, and complete staffing solutions for all aspects of project development and execution. From concept to execution, PIC provides value added services with a focus on quality, safety and optimum results. With over 5,000 projects executed worldwide in 100 countries, PIC offers global service solutions to your domestic and international projects. PIC serves its customers from its corporate office in Atlanta, Georgia as well as Houston, Texas; Zurich, Switzerland; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; and Mexico City, Mexico.