Cooling For Ethylene Plant
Ethylene plant needs fast emergency cooling
- The Challenge
Collapse in cooling tower has costly domino effect
- The Solution
60,000 tonnes of cooling and 12.3 MW of power delivered in six days
- The Impact
Emergency cooling saves refinery up to $5 million a day
Client:Gulf Coast ethylene plant
Location:USA
Sectors:Petrochemical and refining
The challenge
Stop domino effect of cooling tower collapse
At any processing plant, downtime is a big issue. When it costs $5 million a day, it becomes even more serious. A Gulf Coast petrochemical plant was faced with this costly headache when two cells collapsed in the cooling tower used for ethylene processing.
Given that ethylene processing is the first and most important event in the petrochemical product chain, this disaster would have a domino effect throughout the entire plant. Feedstock to downstream units would be reduced by 20–40%, causing a massive economic impact. With repairs slated to take one month, the plant needed emergency back-up.
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The solution
Emergency cooling online in six days
At $5 million a day, the faster a fix is found, the better. We got to work straight away assessing the damage and installing temporary cooling. Given the size of the facility, this was no mean feat. In total, we shipped out 60,000 tonnes of cooling capacity – 30,000 tonnes for immediate use, the rest for back-up – and 12.3 MW of power, nine miles (14.5km) of cable, diesel tanks and more. And it took us just six days.