E vergreen Industrial Services, GEM Mobile Treatment Services and North American Services Group have linked together to form a new industry leader, Turnaround Services Group (TSG), which can successfully plan and execute any outage or turnaround in the U.S. The TSG companies deliver a very impressive high-technical service offering, which exceeds current industry standards and expectations. Whether itâs high-volume and automated hydroblasting, chemical cleaning, degassing or vapor control, liquid or solids waste management, tank cleaning or liquid-solid separation, the TSG companies provide only the highest-quality services throughout their dozens of locations across the U.S.
Next-generation flare gas recovery
With the advent of EPAâs latest environmental emissions compliance restrictions and mandates, refineries across the U.S. are being required to control hydrocarbon vapors during turnaround preparation that typically would be routed to the flare in large volumes. Large volumes of vapors are made when multiple process units shut down and depressurize simultaneously to prepare for decontamination and maintenance. These environmental initiatives have far-reaching impacts to overall turnaround and maintenance strategies, execution plans and schedules. The evolution of maintenance, start-up and shutdown (MSS) compliance and environmental stewardship has rendered previously proven processes and procedures obsolete and environmentally noncompliant, leaving a number of owner/operators in critical situations trying to redesign shutdown and start-up procedures with limited practical knowledge, expertise or no bench strength to bridge the gap between previous best practices and the evolution of new best-available technologies.
Traditionally, turnaround and operational teams focus on health and safety processes, implementing risk mitigation in processes that focus on the impact to human capital and ensure quality control and regulatory compliance. Time management strategies are instrumental in the integration systems to develop, track and scope contractor management systems, and to deal with communication and cultural challenges while ensuring quality assurance.
âThe industry is seeing a paradigm shift to the integration of an overall turnaround strategy that not only looks at the individual operational and maintenance activities but also combines the events,â said Jon Hodges, founder and president of Evergreen Industrial Services. âIt is important to look at the impact of individual events and the synergies that can be gained in a holistic approach instead of a previously largely segmented approach.â
A number of facilities that find themselves in critical situations with existing environmental control systems â such as flare gas recovery systems designed for outdated operational conditions that are operationally obsolete â result in extended shutdown cycles, increased environmental and overall schedule duration, and lost productivity. The systems once designed to protect the environment are currently at risk of overloading during high demand and other situations, causing critical pinch points in the ready-for-maintenance process as well as significant risk for an environmental event.
Flare gas recovery units (FGRUs) are designed and installed upstream to recover valuable waste gases that would otherwise be flared and lost. Any gases have to be routed through a series of equipment consisting of a liquid knockout drum, liquid ring compressor, liquid/vapor-phase separator, liquid cooler and a vapor recycle spillback control valve. Recovered vapors are returned to the fuel gas system, reducing the amount of supplemental natural gas required to maintain the proper BTU balance.
Over the past three years, a number of facilities have experienced events associated with FGRUs, which range from temperature excursions, overwhelmed liquid- seal drums and flow bottlenecking to uncontrolled flaring. To avoid these costly scenarios and ensuing air permit violations, plants are forced to reduce the de-pressuring cycles and steam flow rates, resulting in extended decontamination time, costly delays and planning schedule reliability nightmares, as well as impacting the level of overall decontamination and the chemical cleaning process.
In 2015, Evergreen Industrial Services acquired GEM Mobile Treatment Services. Today, GEM recognizes this dilemma the operational teams are facing in preparation for large and critical-path maintenance events, as well as the supporting activities required to successfully get a facility ready for maintenance. GEM also knows how to minimize the environmental impact and the unforeseen trailing costs associated with waste handling and processing.
GEM has responded to the call, providing a means of routing these vapors through its portable thermal vapor combustion and waste gas processing system. GEMâs system bypasses the flare altogether, combusts the large volume of vapor safely and efficiently, maintains environmental emissions compliance and meets air permit requirements. In addition, GEMâs system eliminates the undesired gases that cause FGRU issues such as nitrogen, steam, hydrogen, liquefied petroleum gas and H2S.
âGEM has successfully completed a number of turnarounds during 2016, reducing flare loads as well as providing flareless options,â said Paul Anderson, group president and founder of GEM. âGEM is saving its clients days on their unit clearing processes and emissions credits, reducing the window between oil-out and first day of maintenance, and allowing its clients to meet stringent environmental requirements for emissions control, facility permit requirements and New Source Performance Standardsâ (NSPS) J/Ja compliance.â
Chemical cleaning
Flare load reduction and flareless turnarounds are just one phase of GEMâs turnaround services portfolio. Evergreenâs chemical cleaning has been instrumental in ready-for-maintenance procedures for years, delivering critical time savings in steam-out and de-inventory processes and providing a high level of vessel cleaning and decontamination. However, chemical cleaning, project designs, and implementation of the cleaning techniques and chemistries must evolve with the needs of customers; the answer is not necessarily more chemistry and longer cleaning durations. To achieve a successful chemical cleaning, the method of applying the chemistry is as important as the chemistry itself.
Evergreen has aggressively developed a cleaning team focused on the integration of chemical cleaning applications into critical activities, beginning with the de-pressuring and the de-inventory processes. Evergreenâs team has over 150 yearsâ experience with critical path chemical cleaning applications and extensive chemical and refining process knowledge. This combination allows the company to become a partner in the overall ready-for-maintenance process.
âEvergreen has and continues to redesign its cleaning equipment to match process temperatures and pressures,â Hodges said. âThis specialized ancillary cleaning equipment is incorporated into process units to eliminate pinch points and provide options for pumping recovered product into storage (instead of waste). Evergreen has designed and regularly utilized a combination of heat exchangers, knock vessels and thermal oxidizers, removing over 90 percent of the demand on existing undersized flare gas recovery systems.â
Waste generation, management and treatment
An area critical in the turnaround process is waste generation, management and treatment. The industry for years has used temporary waste storage tanks such as frac tanks to store the large amount of liquid waste produced in turnaround and large maintenance events. There are multiple sources of wastes produced that are associated with de-inventory procedures, chemical cleaning and hydroblasting. The nature of these waste streams does not allow them to be readily processed in existing process and sewer treatment facilities. They require temporary storage for extended periods and, in some cases, these waste streams require offsite disposal. GEM has a number of treatment options ranging from mobile on-site treatment to water recycling and solids extraction.
âWe have effectively provided realtime water treatment for chemical cleaning and hydroblasting processing waste streams up to 250 gallons per minute, reducing the on-site waste storage capacity by over 60 percent,â Anderson said. âOur mobile treatment options reduce the overall geographic storage footprint and reduce environmental risks associated with temporary tanks being on property for extended periods.â GEM recognizes no two turnarounds are the same; therefore, engineering, operations and compliance personnel are fully engaged with all the different refinery disciplines to coordinate and plan each turnaround to ensure all aspects are covered.
GEM uses state-of-the-art, in-house-designed vapor combustion technology with specially designed heat exchangers, H2S scrubbers, regulators, analyzers and logic controls instrumentations engineered to ensure the project is done effectively and safely and meets compliance needs. Through the use of this specialty equipment, GEM is able to handle more than 8.5 million cubic feet per day and 8-percent H2S with various stream compositions (100-percent nitrogen, steam, hydrocarbon or hydrogen). With these capabilities, GEM is able to tie into a live flare and maintain pressures below the water seal to ensure no flaring events and no environmental excesses, saving the refinery time and money. Since the GEM system is not composition-limited, it can also be used by tying straight onto a unit, such as a diesel hydrodesulfurization unit, and clearing the unit in record time â eight hours versus the traditional 72 hours. This saves the refinery time and nitrogen usage and lowers the overall cost of the project.
âGEM has provided a safe, efficient operation that has shaved days off our turnaround schedule and exceeded our expectations,â said a turnaround maintenance coordinator for a Gulf Coast refinery. âWe are planning on utilizing them again on future turnaround planning.â
GEM understands the value of real estate during a turnaround. Therefore, GEM also offers the ability to process all wastewater being generated during a turnaround as it is being produced. Water is processed to the facilitiesâ discharge criteria and therefore eliminates the need for extra tanks and reduces the impact on refineriesâ in-house water treatment and concerns about hazardous waste disposal time limits.
Contact Evergreen/GEMâs turnaround services group and schedule a presentation with its subject matter experts to learn how it can successfully plan and execute your next outage or turnaround.
For more information, visit www.Evergreenes.com or http://gem.ever greenes.com, or call (281) 478-5800.
