Remote control with Prior Power
The skills of Prior Power technicians keep North Sea oil rigs running safely and efficiently.
Cummins is proud to work in partnership with a dealer network that features some of the finest specialist technicians in the world.
One such dealer is Prior Power Solutions of Great Yarmouth in the east of England which for many years has been maintaining our engines and Cummins-powered generators and equipment on oil rigs in the North Sea.
These are some of the toughest work environments an engineer will ever encounter: intensive round-the-clock assignments working on engines which are often hard to access and always at the mercy of the elements.
On top of this are the commercial pressures to get the job done with as little downtime as possible.
To gain more of an understanding of their work, Cummins Magazine spoke to Paul Mirgaux, who co-ordinates the offshore operations performed by the six-strong engineering team backed up by five technical support engineers and 20 onshore service engineers when required.
Paul, what type of work do you do and what are the pressures?
We carry out scheduled maintenance and in-situ overhauls. We're working on rigs which go back to the 1970s and 80s and the engines are often in places that are incredibly difficult to access, sometimes tight to the rig structure itself.
Often, we encounter situations where the customer has bought the engine package but adapted it to suit their required specification, with things like modified air intakes or additional pipework - items that are not supported by Cummins. Identifying them for replacement can be a challenge.
Obviously, the remoteness of the rigs presents challenges in terms of getting our engineers and equipment on site, and then there’s the weather, which if it’s too harsh means we have to sit it out.
A typical engine overhaul could involve a team of up to four engineers – two on days, two on nights – working 12-hour days, seven days a week and lasting between one and six weeks depending on model, accessibility and site permit availability.
What are the typical Cummins engines you work on?
We’ve come across a number of different Cummins engines in our time and our engineers are always impressed with the build quality.
One North Sea rig we've been working on recently has five Cummins engines: two KTA38s on fire pumps; two KTA50s on emergency back-up generators; and a QSM11 on an emergency air compressor. A while back, we carried out what we believe was the first overhaul on a K38 which had been in service since 1981. That says a lot about Cummins durability.
How do you find the support from Cummins?
It's excellent. Cummins QuickServe is a great tool and very easy to use. I can quickly get prices and availability information, which helps us when we're preparing quotes. Delivery of parts is fast and reliable and, although they are not the cheapest, the quality is outstanding and represents best-value for our customers in the long run.
I can count on one hand the number of products we've had to return to Cummins under warranty in the past 18 years, which is exceptional. We would always stress the importance of using genuine Cummins parts.
What would you say are the strengths of Cummins based on your front-line experience?
I've already mentioned the robustness of the engines and the quality of the genuine parts, which are both fundamental. We also have great communication with Cummins through the UK and Ireland Dealers and Aftermarkets Projects section, which gives us an insight on best practice in the network and what's coming down the line.
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