Advanced industrial cleaning for Saudi petrochemicals plants

Saudi Arabia

Faisal Hussain, general manager of Bridge Saudi Company, talks to The Energy Year about the latest innovations in chemical cleaning and how the company’s dry-cleaning technique has impacted its market share. Bridge Saudi Company provides pre-commissioning, project support and chemical cleaning services, mainly for petrochemical plants.

What are the latest innovations in chemical cleaning?
Our solution is a service called dry cleaning because it eliminates the use of water, and we use it mostly to clean fin fans in industrial facilities. This product also reduces the workforce required to clean fans. In the end it’s also very cost competitive because it reduces downtime too, and for petrochemicals plants, time is money.
Our solution is also environmentally friendly because it can be reused. Furthermore, when calculating the carbon footprint of industrial cleaning, it’s important to highlight that, with our solution, there is no hydro jetting involved. It eliminates the huge amount of fuel and water consumed by jetting machines.

How has the introduction of this technique impacted your market share?
We are the first company to introduce this service in the Saudi market, and we were awarded global contracts with Aramco. I can confidently state that we have cleaned almost every single fin fan unit in this country with this technology. We use a chemical that we manufactured in the Netherlands under Bridge’s ownership patent. We also manufacture the machine used to apply this chemical.

What are the company’s main services, and what sets it apart from the competition?
Our main focus is providing services to petrochemical plants. Bridge Saudi Company specialises in pre-commissioning, project support and chemical cleaning services. We also perform pipeline maintenance through pigging activities, which is not very common in this market.
Our core activity is chemical cleaning, which is a specialised service that requires a lot of technical know-how and research and development. This sets us apart from our competitors. We are providing clients with sustainable and efficient solutions rather than doing turnarounds with a huge fleet of equipment that is highly diesel intensive and has a negative impact on the environment. Companies have started to pay a lot of attention to their carbon footprint, and we have specialised services for this.

How can companies measure their own carbon emissions?
As part of our environmental services, we provide stack emission testing, which is performed to accurately determine the concentration of a specified pollutant being emitted from an industrial process. We are licensed to perform carbon dioxide calculations that are used in the response correlation audits companies need to certify their emissions.

How are you trying to become involved in opportunities in the Circular Carbon Economy National Program?
We deliver solutions that enable a circular carbon economy model for our clients. Aramco plans to quadruple the amount of crude it allocates to petrochemicals production, which will amount to up to 4 million bopd. This will generate huge amounts of waste, and there is an opportunity there to convert this waste into something productive.
There is a lot of petrochemical plant waste, and we foresee many opportunities arising from the Circular Carbon Economy National Program. We are looking for partners in waste management, as we want to progress in this segment in the future and invest heavily in recycling. We are working with large companies to define a strategy for waste processing in different areas, and we’re conducting many pre-feasibility studies.

What is your message to international investors regarding Saudi Arabia’s transformational journey?
Saudi Arabia is the new land of opportunity. Young people that were educated abroad are now coming back to the kingdom because they see the opportunities emerging from Vision 2030. This market is extremely safe from an investor’s standpoint. There is also a wide array of investors present in the country willing to invest in new ideas, startups and SMEs. This is not so common today.

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