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EXPERTISE & INNOVATION

100 years of history

As the demand for oil-based produces rose, in 1919, Wood’s FW Fired Heaters designed and supplied
the first all-convective heater to the refining industry. The following year saw the patent and supply of
the first tubular heater.
1927: 1 vacuum distillation heater in a turnkey supply of a 2-stage atmospheric/vacuum pipe still
st
st
1939: design and supply of the 1 Delayed Coker/Visbreaker Heater based on UOP’s Equiflux (double
fired) heater design.
1949: first vertical cylindrical heater built with vertical bare tubes in the convection section. It was also
the year the Esso Refinery was built at Fawley in the UK.
1954: patented the now famous Terrace Wall furnace design- the basis of our Steam-Hydrocarbon
Reforming Furnace and our Delayed Coker Heater.
1960: developed, designed and supplied a novel compact CO Boiler design for FCC units.
1962: pioneered, designed and supplied the 1 high pressure steam methane reforming furnace – pro-
st
ducing large savings in compression costs.
1975: executed a 34 heater award from multiple offices for a Middle East grassroots refinery project.
1991: design and supplied the 1 Terrace Wall double fired Delayed Coker Heater.
st
1990s: supplied our 200 Terrace Wall Steam Reformer Furnace
th
2000s: supplied our 150 Delayed Coker Heater
th
Today: transformational change with the ability to leverage Wood’s current broad asset integrity and
life cycle optimisation.

tube life (often in excess of 100,000 hours) and de- quiry to the product delivery at a customer’s site,
liver the flexibility to extend the furnace operating including advisory services on site, when required.
envelope. This often allows production of hydrogen
in excess of the design capacity of the hydrogen
production unit, or, in case of the delayed coker, Fired Heaters safety record
extends the run length beyond the original design Combustion equipment demands the utmost
value which in turn delivers additional economic consideration to safety and this is at the heart
benefits. Foster Wheeler’s reformers can operate of Wood’s ethos. Our fired heaters have an
with ultra-low-NOx burners to meet tightening en- exceptional HSE record, providing our customers
vironmental emission standards worldwide. with many years of continued safe operation.

Wood’s Milano office is known as the European
centre of expertise for fired heaters and engineered Energy transition technologies
products as well as the centre of expertise for the Other than Wood’s licensed processes for hydro-
gas technologies (hydrogen production and me- gen production and delayed coking, we own other
thanation) and represents, together with the Ame- technologies that are instrumental to drive the
rican office, the main contributor to this business: energy transition: our VESTA methanation process
the team is led by Giampiero Caronno. Presently, is an efficient, reliable and cost effective method of
the Milano office is made of approximately 50 spe- producing Substitute Natural Gas (SNG) from bio-
cialists able to develop the projects from the en- derived syngas.

“Technical Consulting Solutions”:

una nuova unità globale,

multisettoriale e tecnologica di Wood

Wood è una società che realizza progetti e fornisce servizi di consulenza e ingegneria all’industria dell’Oil &
Gas e ad un’ampia gamma di settori quali ambiente, farmaceutico, minerario, della produzione di energia
pulita e dell’industria in generale. La Società è nata dalla fusione tra Wood Group e Amec Foster Wheeler
avvenuta nel 2017; è presente con uffici in più di 60 Paesi e impiega circa 60.000 persone nel mondo.

Wood è organizzata per “business lines”, una di queste – chiamata Technical Consulting Solutions-
racchiude tutte le competenze specifiche necessarie ai servizi di consulenza di alto livello così come i
prodotti e le tecnologie di processo, fiori all’occhiello della Società: questo articolo fornisce un’istantanea di
questo specifico aspetto delle attività di Wood per le quali l’ufficio italiano è uno dei centri di eccellenza.

34 34 Impiantistica Italiana - Marzo-Aprile 2020