South African pumps firm completes Blantyre water supply contract

13th November 2015

By: Creamer Media Reporter

  

Font size: - +

South African company APE Pumps has completed a major portion of the €16million upgrade project being financed by the World Bank and the European Investment Bank to rehabilitate pipelines and pumpstations supplying water from the Shire river to the Malawi city of Blantyre.

The work comprised two separate contracts awarded by the Blantyre Water Board (BWB), and were managed as turnkey projects shared between the company’s Johannesburg works and the Kolkata factory of holding company Worthington Pumps India.

APE Pumps controlled all phases of both projects from tender to design and manufacture, installation and commissioning.

The official handing-over ceremony to the BWB took place late last month.

The first and larger of the two contracts, to upgrade the Chileka pumpstation, was awarded in April 2013. It was followed in October by a contract to complete the upgrade of raw-water and high-lift pumpstations at Walker’s Ferry, begun by a foreign company that defaulted soon after delivering components and equipment to site.

At Walker’s Ferry, some 40 km north-west of Blantyre, on the Shire river, water is pumped through a water treatment plant by means of two pipelines to a high-lift pumpstation that transfers it 26 km to the Chileka pumpstation, which, in turn, boosts the water flow all the way to storage tanks in Blantyre.

The refurbished raw-water pumpstation at Walker’s Ferry comprises six pump units, each extracting water from the Shire river at a rate of 1 350m3/h and a head of 35 m. After transfer to the purification plant, two further pumpstations, each housing three pumps in parallel and one on standby, transfer the water at between 800 m3/h and 900 m3/h at a 550 m head to the Chileka pumpstation.

To complete the work at Walker’s Ferry, which required the rehabilitation of all aspects of the existing water intake works and high-lift pumpstation, APE Pumps established an on-site workshop and made as much use as possible of contract components already delivered to site by the defaulting contractor, modifying and remanufacturing these where necessary.

APE Pumps itself manufactured the raw-water and high-lift pumps’ motor controls and various valves and actuators, along with all pipework and manifolds.

All nonfunctioning valves and associated actuators, fittings, couplings and pipes were either replaced or repaired, together with all pump sets and related electrical equipment, instrumentation, suction and delivery pipe work and fittings.

New high-voltage devices, including the power feeder, the transformer, the main distribution boards and all cable connection and control cabinets, were also installed after manufacture by Worthington Pumps India.

At Chileka, 26 km away, the upgrade work making up the larger of APE’s two contracts comprised the manufacture, installation and commissioning of eight multistage pumps with electric motors, all motor controls and associated valves, and civil work that included demolishing and rebuilding all concrete plinths and bases in the existing pump house.

The eight pumps installed at Chileka are multistage units manufactured by APE’s sister subsidiary, Mather+Platt, each with a capacity of 750 m3/h at a head of 550 m. Drive on all pumps is by 1 650 kW electric motors.

Much of the manufacture for the two contracts took place at the APE Pumps/Mather+Platt works in Wadeville, east of Johannesburg, with equipment for the electrical arm of the project being supplied by Worthington Pumps India, including five 5 000 kVA transformers to lower the 11 kV supply voltage down to the 3,3 kV required by the motor controls.

Besides the pumps themselves, APE Pumps also supplied all other mechanical and fluid handling equipment for the project, including valves and manifolds.

The upgrades at Walker’s Ferry and Chileka are the latest in a string of turnkey projects undertaken by APE Pumps in Malawi. Completed projects include three water treatment plants at Zomba Plateau, Mangochi and Mzuzu, the extension of the Chilumba fuel receiving depot, and a 4.5 MW hydroelectric scheme at Wovwe North.

APE Pumps Peter Robinson says a highlight of the latest projects at Chileka and Walker’s Ferry was maintaining the supply of water to Blantyre at between 2 700 m3/h and 3 000 m3/h throughout the 16-month duration of the refurbishment.

“We did this by taking off each pump and associated 3.3 kV panel, one at a time, for refurbishment at the old station, while, at the same time building the new station and repeating the process there,” Robinson says.

“Probably the biggest challenge was to take over components abandoned by another company because we had to modify and remanufacture some of these, but we were successful – all operations manuals have been completed and we are now looking forward to the official handing-over of the commissioned stations.

“This project has taken APE Pumps further along its evolutionary path from a pure manufacturer of pumps to a projects company with complete turnkey capability. We are currently in the process of acquiring a second projects firm to take us further along this path, and we are working on our Construction Industry Development Board rating to help us get there,” he concludes.

To watch Creamer Media's latest video reports, click here
 

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION