Cat Pumps Continues to Keep Drill Ships Clean with Wash-Saver

In 2016, Cat Pumps (U.K.) Limited supplied a Wash-Saver unit to a major operator from the Oil and Gas sector for washing down equipment on one of their drilling ships.

This global company, located in Scotland, operates drill ships for ultra- deep water and mid water drilling rigs. Cat Pumps was first approached because one of the drill ships had been using a competitor’s washdown system to provide high-pressure water to clean the onboard equipment. The crew members were coming across the all- too-common issues regarding reliability of the pumps that were initially installed. With this system simply not up to requirements of this formidable and challenging marine application, Cat Pumps was asked to retrofit the ship with one of its own washdown units.

Fast-forward a few years to late 2021. Being so impressed with the design, quality, performance and reliability of the first unit, the drilling company approached Cat Pumps to supply them with a second system. The requirement was to provide a washdown twin pump unit with a maximum footprint of 1600 x 1000 mm, which could provide high-pressure water at 20 to 100 l/min and 160 bar.

Initially, the standard Cat Pumps Wash- Saver design was not suitable, as the unit needed to fit down the ship’s hatchways. The combination of the limited footprint and twin pump design was no problem for the Cat Pumps team, as they routinely build systems to customers’ exacting application specifications. The result was a “tower design” where one pump/motor set is above the other on a common frame with interconnecting pipework.

The Wash-Saver unit is controlled by a variable speed drive (VSD) housed within a bespoke control panel.

The ultimate goal was to closely match washdown demand to pump performance, thereby saving energy and maximising running hours between pump servicing and ensuring that our wash down solution remains a cut above the competition.