SLIDE 5 Client: Large Spanish refjnery Challenge: Avoid contamination during loading
- perations from their tank farm
Solutions evaluated:
- 1. actuators
- 2. position indicators
Results: > 75% savings in CAPEX > Timely signalling of misalignment > Avoiding of unanticipated clean-up costs
A large Spanish refjnery operates its own tank farm for petrol storage. The tanks contain various types of
- product. Gasoline of various qualities and compositions
is stored in separate tanks. Incorrect valve alignment had resulted in the loading
In the past, misalignment of manual valves resulted in the loading of the wrong product quality into a barge. Since this was only discovered after the ship left, it had to return to be emptied, cleaned and refjlled, resulting in avoidable clean-up costs. To avoid such mistakes, a solution was required for 1.100+ manual valves The company sought for a way to eliminate the risk to such events. A common solution would be to add actuators to the valves. These can be programmed such that misalignment is impossible and clearly indicate the position of a valve. An additional benefjt
- f actuators, that operators should no longer go into
the fjeld to operate the many valves manually, was irrelevant to this customer. Company policy required manual valve operation in many cases. Nevertheless, the costs of equipping 1.100 + valves with an actuator are very high. Dedicated position indicators for multi-turn valves are hard to come by Finding alternative ways to get position feedback of their manual, mostly multi-turn valves proved diffjcult. Although 90° switchboxes are readily available, reliable solutions for multi-turn valves are hard to be found. Thorough testing proved VPI to be the best position indicator available After an extensive search, several alternatives were piloted, for a period of over 2 years. By the end of that period, the Netherlocks Valve Position Indicator proved to be the most reliable position indicator available in the market. With VPI, the company found a highly cost effective but state of the art alternative. By installing the VPI on all manual valves in the tank farm, the refjnery avoided a 4x higher investment in actuators. With this, the position of each manual valve became visible in the control room, giving the operators a good overview
- f the alignment of the many valves in the fjeld before
starting loading operations. VPI offered 75% CAPEX savings compared to actuators Quite soon after installation VPI proved its worth. It enabled the operators to timely discover an accidental valve misalignment. Loading was timely canceled, avoiding delays and unexpected costs.
BUSINESS CASE: Early detection of misalignment avoids wrong loading and related clean-up expenses
