Apr
12
AltairStrickland and Turnaround Welding
Services leapt in to action when the Valero
Texas City refinery had a small fire in its crude unit. AltairStrickland helped pull exchanger bundles and worked on the FCC reactor while Turnaround
Welding made weld repairs within and
around the reactor vessel and did the piping
work. The results: a grateful client that we
were pleased to help.

Apr
10

Keith Chism of Tesoro in Salt Lake City, Utah recently sent us a note in praise of Project Manager Ken Beckemeyer and his crackerjack team. The note read, “(I) wanted to drop you a short note about progress to date. I walked the unit yesterday and saw how much work ASI has going pre-turnaround and how much work is staged to be executed during the outage. You and your crew should be commended for all the work going and the preparation of work. The good productivity factors you are posting and, most of all, the great safety record you are holding with all of the congested work going is (amazing). The preparation work shows you’re ready to work the second you get the go-ahead after shutdown. That’s extremely important with the FEL strategy around the schedule. Your focus on execution of work will be very valuable in meeting schedule.” The note ends with this: “Thanks for all your good work to date and looking forward to a safe, efficient shutdown phase.”
Apr
10
Two wins were taking place simultaneously in February. Several members of the AltairStrickland Group were completing several successful turnarounds at the
Shell Deer Park refinery.
And NASCAR driver,
Kevin Harvick, won The Daytona 500.
You may ask, “How do turnarounds and a win at the Daytona 500 tie-in together? It goes this way. Shell sponsors Kevin Harvick and his team. While we were executing the Shell Deer Park turnarounds, Shell brought Harvick’s race car to the refinery so that everyone could get an “up-close and personal” look at it during a safety meeting. Little did anyone know that just a short time later, Harvick would be driving the very car we saw to victory while we were helping Shell drive to a great turnaround victory!

Several in The AltairStrickland Group participated in the Shell Deer Park turnarounds. Turnaround Welding Services focused on piping and welding while Tiger Tower Services suppied their expert tower mechanics to help on tower internals during one of the turnarounds. AltairStrickland is continuing to help the Deer Park company execute an ACU Turnaround this spring and are planning an FCCU turnaround on the refinery side of the Shell complex.
Apr
3
AltairStrickland has once again been nominated for the prestigious Houston Business Roundtable Safety Excellence Award. This time, Shell Deer Park submitted the nomination based on their experience with AltairStrickland as a safety-conscious supplier with an exemplary safety record and performance at the Shell Deer Park plant.
We received the award in 1999 and again in 2005. Because we have already won the award twice, this year we will only be eligible to win in the mentor category.