Cost effective design of natural resource processing plants

Building large natural resource processing plants in remote areas can be a challenge. In addition to the standard project issues, the Owner and Contractor have to address the unique challenges associated with the process technology selected, site conditions and the design approach. The paper describes in detail many of the challenges that the design and engineering team have to meet in order to address and solve the many "unconventional" issues involved. They can be grouped in the following order, according to priority: Approach to plant electrical design; Safety issues and concerns; Constructability and environmental issues. The application of very large (2 and 3 level) prefabricated Electrical Rooms (E-Rooms) on projects is a novel design approach used within the petrochemical and metallurgical industries. Similarly, the novel approach of bonding large process building steel structural members, which are epoxy coated at the steel fabricator, in order to achieve electrical continuity, has not yet been addressed in technical literature.