277 October 2017 - Gryffe Advertizer

26
the advertizer
Members speak at
club meetings
Members of the Gryffe Valley Rotary Club have a very
wide range of professional and business experience
(including engineering, banking, manufacturing, agriculture
and medicine…) and this leads to some very interesting meetings and
discussions. In the last month, three of our speakers, Hamid Khatib and
Colin Bird and Sai Kumar, have been members talking on their own areas
of expertise at the dinner meetings in the River Inn.
August 23 – Hamid Khatib – An oil and gas project
Hamid Khatib is a
Chartered Engineer with
a lifetime’s experience in
the oil and gas industry.
The Britoil Amethyst
Gas Field Development
is located 40 kilometres
east of the Humber, the
fifth project in the North
Sea that was discovered
in 1970. I was not until 1985 that plans began
to be developed as there were numerous
challenges to be overcome. Hamid was
appointed Engineering Manager by Britoil.
With a team of dedicated engineers and
with the collaboration of nine other partner
oil companies the project succeeded in
delivering gas into the National Grid in 1990.
Challenges included the installation of four
wellhead unmanned platforms (two built by UIE on the Clyde) in the busy
shipping area and finding technical solutions to prevent hydrates, carbonic
acid corrosion and liquid slugs in the 30 in. Diameter, 49 kilometre wet gas
export pipeline to shore. This was done by methanol injection premixed
with a corrosion inhibitor at the wellhead using a 3 in. Piggy back pipeline.
Slugging was prevented by regular “sphering” through the installation
via an automatic launcher at the furthest eastern platform to sweep the
liquids to shore into an onshore slug catcher. Remote control of production
including the automatic release of spheres was carried out using a fibre
optic link incorporated into the 50 kilometre, 10kV power import cable. They
had to comply with the UK requirement that pipelines must have facilities to
enable in-service inspection (NDT) by intelligent Pigs ( originally invented
by British Gas ) to ensure technical integrity. Amethyst was the first totally
unmanned, remotely operated field and was highly profitable, supplying 4%
of UK’s needs.
Hamid is justifiably very proud of the whole project that has been copied
by other companies and is still producing. After many questions to Hamid,
President Nigel offered our congratulations.
August 30th – Colin Bird - Plastic Pipes for life
Colin qualified in Metallurgy and has
worked for most of his career in Nondestructive
testing (NDT) in the power,
nuclear and oil and gas sectors.
He recently retired from Doosan
Babcock. His talk focussed on the use
of ultrasonics to inspect welded joints
in plastic pipes used for gas or water.
Techniques which he developed are
now used widely on UK nuclear power
stations and abroad on gas pipelines
and nuclear plant. Q+A covered details of the technology, the economics of
testing and the techno- politics of health and safety regulations in different
countries. Past President Angus gave the vote of thanks.
Sept 16th – Sai Kumar on Hip
Replacements and the Rotary District
Governor Gary Louttit
Sai, who has now retired as an
orthopaedic surgeon, talked about was on
the history of Total Hipjoint Replacement
(HRT). He suggested that most of have
had such a procedure or know someone
who has, but we don’t know much
about it. Aided by some rather graphic
props (see the photo) he took members
through the evolution of the process from
a surprisingly early start in 1891 to today
with high volume and a high success
rate. Some interesting materials were
used over the years, like gold foil, pigs
bladders and glass used for the new socket attached to the bone and a cup
to accomodate the femeral stem, before the development of current high
spec polyethylene and alloys.
Sai finished off with a short but graphic videa of an actual operation - not
for the faint hearted but a fitting conclusion to the story of a great medical
success story, with painfree mobility restored to some 75,000 people each
year in the UK alone.
On the same evening, Gryffe Valley was delighted to have a visit from Gary
Louttit from the Renfrew Rotary club who is currently District Governor
for the West of Scotland. He reminded the club of this year’s strapline
“Rotary Making a Difference” and he talked of Rotary can and does make
a difference, both at a global level like ending polio, and at a local level
with the many projects pursued by clubs like Gryffe Valley. The aggregate
of such effort at all levels helped to make Rotary a rewarding activity for
members.
Rotary BBQ and Disco a great success – over £2000 raised for charity
The annual Rotary BBQ and Disco was held on Friday 25th August 2017 at
Brookfield Village Hall.
Following an excellent meal of steak or salmon (expertly cooked by
Kilbarchan Scouts), salads and sweets (provided by Anne-Marie Mackay
of the Carrick Centre), the evening’s fund-raising raffle took place. Thanks
are due to The Coach House, The River Inn, and WH Malcolm group and
members for the prizes they donated and to those present for their generosity
in buying tickets. For the rest of the evening we were well entertained by
the Disco with DJ Archie in his usual fine form and a crowded dance floor
to the end.
Date for the diary:
Thursday 26th October
– Rotary Curry Night
at Shimla Cottage in
support of the Rotary
End Polio campaign.
Tickets available at £18/
head to cover a threecourse
gourmet meal
and entertainment.
There will be a raffle and
offers of prizes will be gratefully accepted for this very good cause.
t: 01505 613340 07731 923970 e: info@advertizer.co.uk