Global
Anonymous
Bilfinger UK's Mechanical Department were tasked to replace a heat exchanger that had been identified as at risk by the client during an outage at their refinery.
This particular exchanger is critical to keeping the refinery operational, and its surrounding area is extremely congested with process pipework. Due to location it had been decided best to complete this job during a turnaround in case of any issues during the removal and replacement.
Several months before the turnaround was due to start the exchanger broke down. We were tasked with removing the exchanger, and installing its replacement as a matter of urgency to ensure that operations remained intact.
Our team devised a plan to proceed by way of supporting the inlet and outlet lines by mobile crane, and then once they had made the necessary breaks in the inlet and outlet pipework, use a third crane to manoeuvre the exchanger out. By using this method the team would have a maximum of ~6” of headroom to play with against the inlet and outlet pipework either side during the lifts.
This was the quickest way to execute, but also carried the most planning and more due diligence was needed due to the congested location and nature of where the exchanger was located in.
Whilst the client had concerns that this was an extremely difficult task, they trusted the team to execute the plan. The team set to work and in the space of 10 days from when the exchanger went down, the new unit was installed. Due to the speed that the team reacted from planning to execution the downtime was minimal.