Evergreen North America: Delivering industrial cleaning solutions

Changing the industry. Delivering value through innovation.

Evergreen Industrial Services and North American Industrial Services are now proudly branded together as Evergreen North America Industrial Services. Evergreen North America, together with its pre-eminent specialty service provider and wholly owned subsidiary GEM Mobile Treatment Services, is an industry leader in safety and the fastest-growing environmental and industrial cleaning solutions provider in the continental U.S.

Evergreen North America and GEM provide an unparalleled portfolio of services supported and delivered by industry- recognized subject matter experts and a field organization based out of 35 strategic locations nationwide. Safety, integrity and obsessing over the customer experience are core to how Evergreen North America delivers every solution. The group solves your most complex problems, maintaining daily runs and activities with Evergreen North America's recognized leading service lines. These include:

  • Degassing and vapor control.
  • Chemical cleaning.
  • Tank cleaning.
  • Vacuum truck services.
  • Hydroblasting.
  • Hydroexcavation.
  • Industrial logistics and transportation.

"Evergreen North America maintains a longstanding tradition in terms of providing exceptional service quality," said Mark Neas, CEO of Evergreen North America. "Evergreen North America has a clear focus on safety, and we make it our No. 1 priority. We have an excellent safety record."

According to Neas, Evergreen North America employees in the field are welltrained with a focus on safety, quality and productivity.

"These teams have worked for our organization for quite some time," Neas said. "We ensure our field personnel are properly trained in terms of the expectations with equipment and safety procedures. Our work culture leads with safety in everything we do. When we have meetings, toolbox talks, etc. and get our field organization ready, we always lead with safety. We also have a proactive audit process that helps us find risk and intervenes before any possible incident."

Through its continued investment in innovation, automation and state-of-theart equipment, coupled with an ongoing commitment to employee development and safety, Evergreen North America and GEM deliver exceptional value to customers. They ensure this value and quality by having one of the largest company-owned, maintained and optimized fleets, which is intentionally staged close to customers. Evergreen North America's collaborative approach to customer service ensures its customers benefit from a large network of resources and assets, as well as a proven continuous improvement culture.

"Evergreen North America and GEM strive to be the best solution for your challenges," Neas said. "We are unique because we solve complex problems for our customers, and we take on projects not everyone is willing to take on. For example, we recently completed a major turnaround for a refining company in the Gulf Coast. When we decontaminated their HF alky unit, we used our vapor control technology and chemical neutralization process to scrub and neutralize the HF vapors and liquid from the unit to meet the most stringent safety and environmental standards. This was a unique solution that had never been accomplished in industry. The de-inventory and decontamination of an HF alky unit is a very complicated and dangerous environment. What usually takes four to five days we completed in a matter of hours."

Evergreen North America and GEM deliver their service portfolio through the Shutdown Optimization System (SOS), which strategically integrates the solution set to offer faster and sustained return on investment. The SOS provides a unique approach that significantly reduces decontamination time while improving the reliability of your turnaround and positioning your maintenance schedule for success. The SOS approach aligns with planning, scheduling and budgeting processes and minimizes the complexity of these major events.

Owners/operators understand turnarounds provide an important window of opportunity for essential maintenance tasks, safe and efficient service or replacement of equipment, and a critical understanding of discovery work, all while meeting emerging regulatory requirements and process upgrades. To achieve success, these activities must be closely monitored and measured, requiring the expertise and partnership that Evergreen North America and GEM can deliver in terms of schedule management, turnaround planning and budgetary controls.

"The SOS approach for vapor control, chemical cleaning and hydrocarbon liquids treatment saved the refinery days and millions of dollars." - a Gulf Coast refinery unit superintendent

Understanding every turnaround is different, Evergreen North America and GEM build custom pre-turnaround solutions addressing the following:

  • Process unit liquid and vapor de-inventory and cleaning
  • Waste management and processing
  • Project management, planning, engineering and regulatory compliance

Process unit liquid, vapor de-inventory and cleaning

Numerous facility turnarounds are impacted by increasing environmental restrictions driven by new federal EPA standards; maintenance, start-up and shutdown regulatory compliance; and refinery sector rules.

With the SOS approach, Evergreen North America and GEM understand the need for a comprehensive method to develop environmental vapor control strategies, liquids removal and chemical cleaning integrated into operational shutdown procedures, thereby mitigating safety risks, eliminating environmental bottlenecks, shortening the shutdown sequence and increasing reliability of schedule, all while meeting safety and environmental regulatory requirements.

Evergreen North America strives to be the best solution for your challenges.

Evergreen North America and GEM's vapor control strategy during shutdown allows for flareless shutdown capability, eliminating the flare systems as primary destruction sources, as well as providing continuous environmental compliance and monitoring, data recording and final compliance reporting documentation. This solution provides vapor processing that mitigates problematic process variables and compounds during the shutdown and cleaning process -- before introduction into a facility's flare-gas recovery unit or flare system.

"We specialize in the ability to complete complex shutdowns that require integrated capabilities between our vapor management and our chemical cleaning," Neas said. "The SOS takes vapor management, chemical cleaning and water treatment and combines those services to optimize a decontamination for a customer's turnaround sequence. This combination of service lines is a real differentiator for us."

The vapor control process includes thermal vapor destruction, liquid scrubbing, carbon adsorption, heat exchanger cooling and condensing, and condensate removal, as well as pressure and temperature control. These vapor control processes are integrated into the facility shutdown plan and regulatory compliance program.

Another critical challenge related to de-inventory is posed by liquids removal and chemical cleaning of the unit. The SOS approach addresses this challenge in the planning phase by developing and executing ready-for-maintenance procedures that deliver critical turnaround time savings in steam-out and de-inventory processes, while also providing a high level of vessel cleaning and decontamination. The SOS approach understands the chemical cleaning, project designs, and implementation of the cleaning techniques and chemistries must evolve to keep up with changing demands from the units and the needs of customers. The answer is not necessarily more chemistry and longer cleaning durations; rather, it is the clear understanding of the correct methods to address the situation.

"The SOS integrated approach for vapor control, chemical cleaning and hydrocarbon liquids treatment saved the refinery days and millions of dollars from traditional unit de-inventory methods," said a Gulf Coast refinery unit superintendent. "The single point of contact and accountability under one company provided us reliability and consistency we could count on."

Evergreen North America and GEM's SOS provides solutions for typical de-inventory issues during chemical cleaning. These issues include:

  • Flue-gas recirculation overheating caused by the unit steaming process.
  • Increased de-inventory time caused by inadequate steam supply, resulting in incomplete residual liquid removal and poor cleaning quality.
  • Extended de-inventory time caused by limited drain capacity for recovered products and condensate.
  • Process unit vapor control and liquids removal.

Waste management and processing

The SOS approach also addresses the critical turnaround challenge of waste generation, management and treatment. During the turnaround de-inventory and cleaning process, large amounts of liquids are generated and stored in temporary waste storage tanks. Typical sources include wastes associated with chemical cleaning and hydroblasting. The SOS provides several treatment options ranging from mobile on-site treatment to water recycling and solids extraction, which are incorporated into the overall strategy in order to sustain the benefits from the upfront schedule reductions.

Project planning, engineering and regulatory compliance

Evergreen North America and GEM's SOS encompasses a collaborative approach with the customer to develop the best approach based on engaging in many of the following activities:

  • Integrating operations, environmental and maintenance teams
  • Evaluating the complete project process and developing an individual solution based on individual needs
  • Developing a detailed schedule and timeline
  • Providing written procedures, process flow diagrams, P&IDs and contingency plans
  • Supporting management of change and process hazard analysis
  • Providing regulatory compliance permitting, monitoring and reporting
  • Providing on-site engineering, project management and project cost controls reporting
  • Providing owned equipment packages, piping, hoses and ancillary support items

The SOS coordinates project execution across multiple services and process units into one managed solution, allowing for streamlined communication and cost accountability. A single solution providing turnkey operations drives enormous benefits from the de-inventory schedule through the hydroblasting portion of the mechanical maintenance schedule.

In summary, SOS provides a turnaround approach that combines various activities into a comprehensive plan that can be executed under one company. SOS provides integrated planning and communication and enhanced schedule reliability. Some of the elements provided by SOS are:

  • Single point of contact, goal alignment and accountability.
  • Reduced flare-capacity limitations.
  • Flareless shutdown capability.
  • Decreased de-pressure and venting time.
  • De-inventory/drain header systems.
  • Condensing and vapor consolidation methods.
  • Chemical and nonchemical clearing options.
  • Optimized liquid-transfer logistics and storage plans.
  • Design process-specific cleaning applications.
  • Waste reduction and treatment options.
  • Environmental compliance reports and documentation.

As far as the future of Evergreen North America, the company is focused on managing its growth so it can continue to provide exceptional service.

"Keeping our safety and quality-oriented culture of the company intact is important," Neas said. "We provide a wide range of services that are unique in the marketplace, and we're expanding those services beyond their initial footprint. We are focused on providing more service lines to existing customers and expanding our geographical range."

Contact Evergreen North America and GEM to schedule an SOS presentation to help plan and execute your next outage or turnaround.

For more information, visit www.evergreenes.com or http://gem.evergreenes.com, or call (281) 478-5800.

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