Process Gas Solutions operates on a global scale and is used to dealing with big numbers. Our 6,500 operations people look after 900 production plants. They deliver gas to customers through pipelines and in 2,000 vehicles. They make 1.5 million deliveries of liquefied gas each year, storing it in over 20,000 insulated tanks at our customers' sites.
For as long as our operations people can remember, the emphasis has been on becoming more efficient. We measure everything, from how much electricity it takes to produce each cubic metre of gas, to how many kilometres each truck has to travel to deliver that gas to a customer. We then consistently improve each of these measures,
as we have done for decades.
Computing power and improved communications technology helps, but working against us has been the steady, and more recently spectacular, increase in energy costs. We try and keep all of our plants operating reliably and at peak efficiency all the time, adapting to changes in demand patterns and input costs. We use real time information about the weather and power pricing to adjust our operations. We know second by second how our plants are performing. And we have process data stretching back over time with which we can compare current performance.
The result is a stream of energy efficiency projects. As an example, in the US we have just finished investing $1.3 million to improve a 14,000 horsepower compressor at one of our sites in California. It took a year to plan and another year to implement the changes and the end result is a three per cent power saving. Saving power has important environmental benefits and, as carbon trading becomes an economic reality in many parts of the world, it can save money twice over. Our plant at Port Kembla in Australia calculates that its power savings this year equate to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of nearly 5,800 tonnes of carbon dioxide. The plant is one of many we have equipped with linear model predictive control (LMPC) as part of our global programme to optimise plant performance and it has been able to trade its carbon savings on the open market.
It's the same story in every part of our business - doing more with less - and ensuring that everything we do is done safely. It's just that the figures look that much bigger when you work on the scale of Process Gas Solutions.
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