Moving Infrastructure Forward in Ghana

Building a new asphalt facility is a huge investment in both time and resources - a task that the team at Heatec has completed countless times. When the company was contacted by Ghana Oil Company Limited (GOIL PLC) to build a brand new facility in Ghana, Africa, they didn't hesitate to jump in and help.

"One of the major challenges we face in every government of this country is road construction," Mr. Kwame Osei-Prempeh, Group CEO & MD, GOIL, PLC said. "We import bitumen from our side of the county and at GOIL, we want to produce it here and at the highest quality so that our roads will be durable."

GOIL knew they wanted to build a high-tech bitumen plant to ensure they were able to produce enough material for the needs of the area, and at the highest of standards. They also wanted to ensure that the plant operated at the highest standards, producing bituminous products that met international specifications. GOIL reached out to the Heatec team in 2018 with the intention of expanding their offerings, while also helping to advance infrastructure in the predominantly rural landscape in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana.

The project involved designing and building a groundbreaking bitumen plant, the first of its kind in the country. The terminal, which includes a two-mile electrically heated jetty line and a polymer modification plant, was designed to handle significant liquid storage and throughput to help modernize infrastructure for the area.

The result was a state-of-the-art bitumen plant with a total storage capacity of 7,500 metric tons that processes base bitumen imported from Côte d'Ivoire into high-quality polymer modified bitumen (PMB) and bitumen emulsions. These products are critical to the development of durable road infrastructure, offering enhanced performance under extreme weather conditions and heavy traffic loads - launching the area into a new era of infrastructure development.

The road to make this plant a reality though, wasn't always smooth.

"GOIL chose Heatec equipment from Astec because they saw Heatec had the capabilities to provide a complete package from one provider eliminating the need for multiple companies to be involved," Steve Munson, Director of Sales at Heatec said. "With this partnership, the goal was to reduce possible confusion between contractors and equipment providers."

From Concept to Completion

From the beginning, GOIL relied on the expertise of the Heatec team in designing the terminal.

"We wanted to follow standard specifications and everything we did went through our quality development and project team," Jean Chistophe Langen, MD, ORSAM LTD Oil & Gas said. "This technology is nowhere to be seen in West Africa and we knew the benefits this plant could bring not only to GOIL, but to Ghana."

The team at GOIL came to the United States and saw a plant location in Texas and Georgia and met with the Heatec team in Chattanooga. They sat down and did the initial drawings and design of the plant. GOIL provided a satellite view of the area and their goals and potential material throughput for the location. The Heatec terminal was set to include the mechanical, thermal oil heating, electrical, PLC terminal and loadout controls, polymer plant and emulsion plant. The plan was designed to accommodate their current and future needs.

"The GOIL team gave us an idea of how many tons of liquid that they wanted to store, what they believed was going to be their throughput for that and potential expansion that they wanted to be ready for," Munson said. "We had to take into consideration the size of the ships coming into the area and how many tons of bitumen that they could hold so that we could size the tanks and the amount of tanks properly."

The transportation of the materials into the plant from delivery was another engineering obstacle for the teams to overcome.

"The jetty line, where the ship comes in to offload, to the terminal, needed to be almost two miles long, and all electric heat," Munson said. "When designing this, we had to take into consideration the size of the line and sizing that according to what we knew the offloading rate was of the ship. Once we knew all of that and the distances, we worked with a supplier to size the electric heat tracing for that system."

The design of this extensive jetty line was no easy feat. Alphonso Okai, Managing Director of GOBitumen until his recent retirement, stated that the technology employed for the electrical heating of the pipeline to the jetty was made possible by the ORTEC GP. (ORSAM GHANA LTD).

Once the design plan was in place, the Heatec team got started manufacturing the parts and preparing overseas shipments - until a complicated wrench got thrown in their plans in the form of COVID-19.

COVID Complications

Heatec prides themselves on being very hands on with their customers. From concept to completion to training and support after the sale, they want to provide the team members needed to make every step of the partnership run smoothly. A global pandemic prevented that from happening.

"After their initial visit, we were set to begin building, but COVID hit," Munson said. "After their visit to the U.S., a lot of what we did in terms of design and engineering of the plant needed to be done virtually over Microsoft Teams. We met with them weekly and shared drawings and updates. If they ran into problems, they were able to give us a call."

While the parts were being manufactured in the states, Heatec helped the GOIL team choose a contractor for the install of the plant back in Ghana. This is something the Heatec team would normally be on site to do themselves, but travel restrictions prevented their team from the typical onsite installation process.

"We sat down virtually with a lot of contractors to discuss the construction process," Munson said. "We looked at what their experience was in this type of construction process and asked them certain questions. You can learn a lot about how well a contractor will do by feel and from their responses. For GOIL, we chose a company based out of France, but they also had an office in Ghana which made a big difference with our choice."

Another challenge? International shipping of extremely large equipment.

"Because we had vertical tanks, there had to be specialized ships for that," Munson said. "We're shipping heaters built in Chattanooga and a lot of big bulky items that wouldn't fit in containers all the way over to Africa - which was going to take about a month. Fortunately, we were able to work with a shipping company to get those issues resolved and all parts arrived over there for the most part, in good shape."

While they couldn't be there in person during construction, they were only a phone call away and worked through standard changes and remote operation to assist with any troubleshooting during install and training.

"That's the great part about technology," Munson said. "We can go online, remotely and help troubleshoot any issues. We can also do updates to a certain point as well for them."

And this was important for GOIL who built this plan with the future in mind - Heatec will be with them to help with any product support or training they may need to get this done.

Expanding Offerings in Ghana

Not only does GOIL intend to sell the materials as they are made for road building projects, but they also wanted to be able to process their materials into other grades to create new products for the area. Heatec worked to ensure they had everything they needed - including the storage capacity - to make this happen.

The Polymer Modified Bitumen (PMB) that they are making was specially formulated with U.S.-based company, Associated Asphalt, is produced by adding polymers to standard bitumen and is known for its superior elasticity, strength, and resistance to cracking, making it ideal for use in high-stress areas such as highways and airport runways.

"The current highways that are being constructed in Ghana are importing materials as needed," Anyayure L. J. Adongo, Terminal Manager, GoBitumin LTD said. "We need the Ghana Highway Authority to specify these PMB materials for their roadways. Contractors will now be able to utilize us for these projects"

GOIL also is proud to be able to ensure the highest quality of materials for their emulsions and knows the work they are doing will continue to help both the infrastructure and economy in the area. The new facility has contributed to job creation and also boosted Ghana's export potential. By producing high-quality bitumen products domestically with this plant, Ghana will not only meet its local demand, but also supply neighboring West African countries, generating foreign exchange earnings for the economy.

"The bitumen project is a manifestation of GOIL's commitment to diversification," Reginald Danial Laryea, Board Chairman, GOIL PLC said. "We have seen the quality and the commitment and we don't have any doubt in our mind that this will continue to be a success."

Heatec Equipment Supplied by Astec:

• Thermal Oil Heaters
• Tank Heating Coils for All the Field Erected Tanks
• Polymer Plant Equipment
• Emulsion Plant Equipment
• Emulsion Cooling Equipment
• Firestorm Water Heater for Making Emulsion
• Motor Control Center,
• PLC Controls for Terminal and Truck Loading
• Truck Loading Rack
• Truck Scales
• Vertical Bitumen Tanks for Polymer Modified Bitumen and Finished Emulsion Tanks All Valves - Manual and Automated
• Bitumen Pumps
• Heat Exchanger