Honeywell today (May 23) opened its new Customer Acceptance Center in the Mussafah industrial zone of Abu Dhabi, its largest in the region, covering a total floor area of 5,500 sq m.

During peak periods, up to 150 Honeywell and third-party engineers will be working at this facility, which enables testing of systems destined for the Shah sour gas field development, a principal project of Al Hosn Gas, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi’s Adnoc and Occidental Petroleum.

The Shah Sour Gas Field Development Project, set for completion in 2014, will involve construction of several gas gathering systems, new gas and liquid pipelines, and processing trains.

“The new Customer Acceptance Center clearly shows Honeywell’s commitment to providing high-quality services to its customers in the Middle East,” said Saif Al Ghafli, CEO of Abu Dhabi Gas Development (Al Hosn Gas).

“It provides a highly professional, state-of-the-art facility that will enable thorough testing of the systems we have purchased from Honeywell.”

Honeywell Process Solutions is the main automation contractor for the Shah Gas Development Project, providing operation, control, monitoring and full protection of the gas field through its Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS) and Safety Manager Technologies.

The new Customer Acceptance Center will enable Al Hosn Gas to conduct thorough testing of Honeywell’s control system hardware and software destined for the Shah Gas Development Project.

Honeywell control system cabinets, marshalling cabinets and third-party equipment will be received at this facility. Pre-factory acceptance testing (Pre-FAT) will be conducted by the Honeywell team.

After this, factory acceptance testing (FAT) and integrated factory acceptance testing (I-FAT) will be conducted with the engineering and procurement contractors (Saipem, Samsung and TR) and the end user (Al Hosn Gas). Once these tests are successfully completed, the systems will be shipped to the site for commissioning.

“Our new facility will be able to hold over 1,500 control system cabinets and comfortably house multiple engineering procurement contractors (EPC) and end user teams working on the various Factory Acceptance Tests,” said Mansour Belhadj, sales director at Honeywell Process Solutions, Middle East.

“It will complement our five existing Customer Acceptance Centers that we operate for our customers in the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In addition, we are working on establishing new Customer Acceptance Centers in Oman and Egypt,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service