Engineering Manager for ITL Engineering Ryan McDonald says that the team ITL has assembled at the company is the key to its success.
ITL is a privately held company, co-owned by its executive committee of Andrew Smith, Graham and Kim Gilkison, Alan Hooker and Mr McDonald.
The company was established in New Plymouth in 1988 as a specialist process and mechanical engineering design house. The company has expanded to include instrument and electrical engineering.
The company now employs 50 engineers and designers and has had an influence in every oil and gas installation in New Zealand’s exploration capital of Taranaki. Approximately 50 per cent of the work performed by ITL is for international clients and the company has a long history of providing equipment and services to Australia.
“The Supreme Business [Award] in the world’s best city was a real thrill for us,” says Mr McDonald.
Pipelining is a strong part of ITL’s core business in New Zealand, where the company is a major supplier of pipeline engineering services to Vector Transmission.
ITL recently commissioned a pipeline pressure control facility for Vector, which included the design and construction of above-ground facilities to control pressures in the pipeline. This involved tie-in to an existing 20 inch transmission line and installing dual 12 inch regulator trains to control pressure in the north and south sections of the line.
One of ITL’s benchmark projects involved the design of high temperature buried pipelines for the Cheal Production Station in south Taranaki. Due to the pressures and temperatures involved in this multi-line project, it was the first of its kind to be designed and built to AS2885.1 2007 standards.
In Australia, ITL is best known for supplying turnkey gas processing equipment, which typically includes bath heaters, filters, gas conditioning and dew point control packages, pressure regulation and metering stations, and gas compression packages.
Mr McDonald said “Unlike most engineering consultancies our preference is to provide fixed price packages wherever possible. We think like a contractor and operate in close partnership with our fabricators to provide cost effective solutions which are fit for purpose.”
ITL is one of a handful of companies around the world that can perform the detailed API 618 DA3 studies for high power compression systems, and has carried out this type of work for numerous facilities on the east and west coasts of Australia.
In Karratha, Western Australia, the company recently supplied five gas conditioning modules for ATCO Power’s gas-fired power station.
Mr McDonald says “I really enjoyed the APIA Convention in Cairns and found that it serves as a great forum for discussing current projects and technical challenges with industry focused people.”
Mr McDonald says “ITL will continue to grow as the industry permits. We’re keeping a close eye on the coal seam gas industry both in New Zealand and Australia, and we’re excited about the potential that this holds for ITL.”