We are doing projects on Gathering Centers in Kuwait for Kuwait Oil Company.

And I’m working here in Kuwait for AMEC with the majority of western coworkers from the UK.

So is it spelled Gathering Center or Gathering Centre. So with further research, I believe it will follow the British “re” from now on.

And then how do you spell meter? Or is it metre? Depends where you are from!

The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive (reader, winner) and comparative (louder, nicer) forms. One consequence is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument from metre for the unit of measurement. However, while poetic metre is often -re, pentameter, hexameter, etc. are always -er.

American and British English spelling differences – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And then there are the Canadian differences also.

Yes the above is a skid mounted compressor unit. I know it is a lousy picture, the best I could find without spending too much time.

Does everything go in a big circle?

When I graduated Mechanical Engineering I worked for a company called Eagle Pump & Compressor for a couple of years. Of course in those days the Internet wasn’t invented yet but you see they now have a web site. My job was to get them going on small gas compressor units including a small sour gas stock tank vapor recover unit (In Kuwait here we call the same service Tank Vapor or TV compressors. And it is also sour here. But more than ten times the size.) Well, it has come around the full circle. Now in Kuwait, I am analyzing proposals from packagers to provide similar equipment, though they are here about ten times the horsepower. So the engines are the same manufacturers, Cat and Waukesha and the reciprocating compressors are by Ariel. The TV units here are screw compressors. I was familiar with them from air compressors I did way back at Eagle also.

And, guess where the packagers are from that we are dealing with here? Calgary mostly, now we’re looking at Enerflex , Toromont and GSI. Both use local agents, Safwan, Khuff and Al-Khorayef respectively here in Kuwait for sales, engineering and service support.

What about the pump part. Well, generally pumps are simpler and not as involvled to procure, though the service conditions vary. And they are well equipped for crude pumps as that has always been a priority.

And also I am helping with expediting the repair of a gas compressor that had some bolds fail. Simple littly bolts but the wrong type of material for the service conditions. Basically it is the sour gas (H₂S) content in the gas that is the problem. Hydrogen is nasty and it actually migrates into the crystalline structure of the metal and weakens it. That is stuff you study in Mechanical Engineering, metallurgy, failures etc. Though of course I dont’ get into the fine details, but it isn’t that complicated, different types of failures etc.