Question 1

The challenge

Accepted Answer

A refinery kept two compressors on rent from a competitor to serve as emergency backup. The units remained connected and ready for use but were rarely, if ever, needed. Both units were oil-flooded, a detail that became critical when the plant scheduled maintenance on its primary compressors. With those primary units offline for two to three months, the only backup available was oil-flooded air feeding straight into the plant’s main air header. That posed a serious risk. Even a small amount of oil carryover into the plant air system can be costly to fix, requiring lines to be purged with nitrogen before operations can safely resume. The plant’s engineers were knowledgeable about the risk, and even instrument-quality (IQ) air didn’t fully put their minds at ease, as IQ still carries some chance of oil intrusion. With production running and maintenance already being pushed to the edge of its interval, the customer needed a backup they could trust without introducing new risk to their process.

Question 2

The solution

Accepted Answer

When the plant needed to bridge its maintenance window without compromising plant air quality, it turned to Aggreko. The solution was built around ISO 8573-1 Class 0 air, true oil-free air with no risk of oil from oil-flooded or instrument-quality compressors reaching the main header. The plant requested oil-free compressors from Aggreko to replace the two oil-flooded backup units, eliminating any risk of oil intrusion. The scope then grew, with the customer adding two additional oil-free units as standing backups. In total, four 1600 CFM diesel oil-free Aggreko compressors were deployed on site. Two were released once the primary compressors returned to service, while the remaining two were retained as long-term backups.

Question 3

The impact

Accepted Answer

The switch to oil-free air eliminated the risk of oil contamination in the plant’s main air header, protecting the critical processes it supports and avoiding the cost and downtime associated with using nitrogen to dry out the lines. Throughout the maintenance window, the refinery’s backup air performed exactly as it needed to. The plant ran without interruption on the Aggreko compressors, maintaining 100% throughput with zero impact to operations. What started as a two-unit rental grew into a four-unit deployment, with two units converting to a standing, on-site backup arrangement, giving the refinery a dependable source of oil-free air on hand. The result was a fully reliable plant air system with no oil contamination and no downtime, giving the refinery confidence that critical operations could continue uninterrupted during both planned maintenance and unexpected events.

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Replacing oil-flooded compressors with oil-free air protects refinery throughput

Overview

The challenge

The solution

The impact

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