Mar
30
AltairStrickland performs a coker revamp that was a tight fit and an extremely complex job.. but the outcome was nothing short of amazing.
No recordable injuries, zero lost time injuries and 160 linear feet of complex welds executed with zero weld repairs. Does this sound too good to be true? Well it is true and our client, CITGO in Lake Charles, LA, knows it to be true. So does the independent quality control people who tested the welds, "We've never tested welds of this high quality before", they
reported.
Coker units operate safer and more efficiently when Delta Valves are installed. And, AltairStrickland installs more Delta Valves than any other contractor in the world. Our experience, knowledge and teamwork make all the difference in how these types of projects are executed.
The huge 50-ton Delta Valves had to fit in a small space. The new cones were larger than normal and the cutlines were all in a difficult and highly congested area. AltairStrickland's Jim Robinson did very detailed rigging and lift plans in advance of the project to make sure the valves could be installed where needed.
Two of the coke drums were 3% chrome and had to be welded to cones that were 2 1/4% chrome. The other two were 2 1/4 to 2 1/4% chrome. Welders were briefed on the details and importance of strict adherence to weld procedures was stressed daily
By AltairStrickland integrating their work with other contractors in the area and by constantly updating and communicating with all involved, surprises were overcome; excellent planning/scheduling helped conquer other issues.
"The entire AltairStrickland project team - all the way from Superintendents to support crafts - worked as a well-oiled machine and performed their individual jobs as professionally as I have ever witnessed," said Area Operations Manager, Glenn Carpenter.
Nov
12
AltairStrickland recently surpassed one million safe man-hours at the BP Texas City site.
Oct
15
AltairStrickland replaces coke chutes during cycle changes and saves five days and many man-hours.
AltairStrickland's team of coker unit experts recently planned, managed and executed two coke drum chute replacements for a client in Southeast Texas. Remarkably, the chute replacements were done during the cycle changes for the coker unit. This required careful planning and constructability reviews to make sure that everything proceeded perfectly.
The team began by fabricating the chutes on-site and utilized welders and fitters that were already at the location performing pre-turnaround work for a planned coker turnaround.
The client and AltairStrickland's Ken Beckemeyer joined forces to look for ways to reduce the turnaround schedule. They found that by installing two of the three chutes during a "mini-outage," that they could extend the cycle time to 30 hours. Next, they found they could replace two chutes and cut five days from the originally scheduled thirty-day turnaround. They also decided that they could save money by using on-site craftspeople and eliminate ten personnel per shift during the project.
The chutes were set in place using a rigging/lifting plan developed by the AltairStrickland team of supervisors along with our home office's engineering support. The plan was to use machine rollers to skate the pieces in and up under the structure. Although it was a very tight space, the project proceeded without incident. Next, the chutes were lifted into place using chain hoists. Finally the chutes were welded into place and beam supports were installed. The project was done during two thirty-hour drum change cycles with zero incidents.
Mar
22
AltairStrickland is currently performing a reactor fabrication project for Jacobs Engineering at the ExxonMobil facility in Beaumont, Texas. The reactor is being fabricated on-site and will be installed during a turnaround in the ?rst quarter of 2008. Mark Bullock, a Project Manager for Jacobs Engineering, extended his compliments to Danny Cleveland along with Jeff Miller and crew for their work on the project. Mr. Bullock said that their efforts in planning the pre-turnaround and the turnaround scopes for the Reactor and RTT projects were outstanding. He also informed us that the team scored a 96.7% in the XOM TR-3 review was the highest rating received by a project in quite some time.
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