Turnaround Project Foresight: What You Need to Know to Be Prepared

We caught up with Barney Smith, Business Development Manager for Turnaround Services at Aggreko, to get expert insights on foolproof planning.

“A well-planned turnaround will lead to a well-executed turnaround,” says Barney. “To me, that’s the most important thing.” But what does thorough, effective planning involve?

As Barney explains, it means allowing yourself a decent timeframe. It means setting clear milestones for securing equipment contracts and partnering with the right vendors. It means getting second opinions, building on the lessons of previous turnarounds, and finding creative ways to limit your costs. In the current Covid-19 context, it means adapting to the specific pressures and restrictions of the new normal, too.

Here are Barney’s top 5 tips to help refineries prepare for their next turnaround – and beyond.

1. Don’t just repeat the past. Learn from it

You may be thinking, hey, this isn’t our first rodeo! We’ve organized turnarounds before. We have a system. It’s worked out okay in the past. Can’t we just do the same again?

Well, you can… but you’ll get far better results if you’re willing to take a critical, innovative, data-backed approach. As Barney explains, many refineries massively overestimate the amount of power they’ll need for their turnaround, sometimes to the tune of 300%. If you simply whip out your previous action plan, you’ll repeat the same mistakes all over again, leading to unnecessary waste and costs.

Instead, it’s worth sitting down with your temporary utilities vendor and asking them to right-size your equipment based on how much power they calculate you’ll need.

Even better, ask for remote monitoring as part of the service. Not only will this reduce response times and allow them to troubleshoot faster, says Barney, it also means they’ll continually collect data on when and where you use electricity. You can then assess whether to reduce the load further for future turnarounds, continually improving over time.

2. Be smart about controlling costs

Managing your turnaround budget isn’t just about driving down unit rental price. It’s even more important to seek additional savings that bring down the overall cost of the turnaround, says Barney.

For example, let’s say you usually use nitrogen gas to dry units before reintroducing feed. For safety, you’d need to evacuate the area and cease work while you pump nitrogen into the unit. Alternatively, you can use oil-free air compressors with dryers and achieve similar dew points. By doing this, drying can be started earlier and the unit can be dried in sections as maintenance is completed. Proper engineering controls are critical when using compressed air. Make sure you work with a supplier who can provide that.

Or think about your hydrotreater, which typically requires enormous amounts of nitrogen to cool down. The Aggreko team, says Barney, has developed and patented a unique way to cool the reactor using their own gear, which shaves a considerable chunk from the total turnaround time.

“If you shorten the timeline of the turnaround by one day, that's one more day of production you can put in your back pocket. Right to your bottom line,” says Barney.

3. Lock down your power source and temporary equipment early

It’s important to organize rental equipment as soon as possible, giving yourself a chance to talk over needs with the vendor and ensure it’s available when you need it. Especially if you need a complex set-up involving switchgear, transformers, distribution, standalone breakers, and so on.

Plus, the sooner you start thinking about how to power your turnaround, the better placed you’ll be to review plans, trim the fat, and seek out streamlined, efficient alternatives.

“A lot of refineries don’t have a hard milestone in their turnaround planning for when temporary power will kick in; for determining what power they’ll need for particular tasks at different stages in the turnaround,” explains Barney. Addressing these issues earlier in the planning cycle means you move from a reactive mentality to strategically assessing the most cost-effective solution to deliver the amount of power you need.

That could mean striking a balance between higher voltage grid power and supplemental generators, building a central power plant to distribute power, or positioning multiple generators around the site. Whatever you decide, says Barney, identifying the best solution early on means you have “a better chance of using whatever internal power you have, which is a tremendous cost savings mechanism.”

4. Don’t forget about remote working restrictions

In the current climate, it’s crucial to take into account the impact of remote working policies and other Covid-related restrictions. Refineries and petrochemical companies - as well as their partners and vendors - also have to think carefully about how to manage social distancing policies. It’s likely that fewer people can be onsite and involved in the turnaround.

Make sure you work with a highly experienced temporary utilities vendor, who knows exactly what questions to ask and can assist with early-stage planning without seeing the site for themselves. By the time they can conduct a site visit, this will likely be to tick off finer details and check if they need to tweak their final engineering design.

5. Don’t wait until the last minute

You need plenty of time to get plans properly vetted and secure contracts for equipment, vendors, and other third parties involved in the project. A few months before your turnaround is scheduled simply won’t be a long enough lead time.

Barney suggests that refineries start exploring creative solutions as soon as they’ve locked down their scope.

“It’s the ideal time, because they know what they are going to do and what they’ve done in the past, so they can start asking vendors for different solutions that create the value and the cost savings they’re looking for,” he says. “Talk to vendors to see what solutions they can present to help you achieve your overall goal: a safer turnaround, at a shorter duration and lower cost.”

Final thoughts: lean on the experts

Refineries are experts in refining. Petrochemical plants are experts in processing chemicals. But when it comes to providing the best, most effective solutions for turnarounds, the suppliers and partners who do this day in, day out, are the experts. Make sure you squeeze out as much expertise from them as you can!

Involve them from the earliest possible stage. Ask for their advice on insights. Bring them problems and challenges to tackle, rather than simply calling up with requests for a certain number of generators and auxiliary equipment. Make them part of your planning team.

“If you’re using vendors, try to maximize their expertise and knowledge. You can say, okay, here’s my challenge, and here’s how I’ve always done it. Is there anything that you could do differently that can bring my costs down?” says Barney. “Lean on them to help you develop creative ways to handle the things they’re experts in. For unique, value-driven solutions to get the job done.”

Learn about our turnaround applications

Be always the first to know by subscribing to our newsletter