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Rush compressor seal and lubricating system retrofit job
One year ago a rush compressor retrofit job was awarded to us by the oil refinery of Rosneft Angarsk Petrochemical Company - a huge plant in Siberia not very far from the Baikal Lake in Russia. The job was to begin on 11.09.2009 and to finish within one month.
After the initial upgrade of the compressor (rotor and body were upgraded for new specifications) in 2005-2007, oil mechanical seals and the oil removing system could not ensure the required tightness. To reach seal tightness and thus to stop the loss of gas and gas condensate to the flare, it was planned to replace mechanical seals with dry gas seals and to modify the lubricating system because dry gas seals do not need mineral oil for lubrication while the original seals did.
It should be mentioned that the application was quite difficult because the transfered gas was petroleum gas with high content of solids and heavier fractions condensate.
During that month of the process unit planned shutdown the compressor was to be disassembled, old wet mechanical seals were to be removed, compressor body and systems were to be modified to accept dry gas seals, newly made dry gas seals were to be installed, the compressor body is to be reassembled. A control panel for dry gas seals was to be installed and wired to the compressor control system.
While one month was perfectly OK to do the compressor retrofit job, we had very limited time to manufacture the dry gas seals and the control panel. It so happened that the contract was signed only on 14.08.09 – less then one month before the planned shutdown. Admittedly, we had another month to prepare the drawings.
The products were finished and installed on time. The compressor is running nicely now. With the new seals, the compressor is showing improved flowrate. Customer had to adjust the compressor control system.
The seals and the system were made in the facilities in Kazan' and Moscow. We thank the personnel for the super-fast job, and of course we thank the maintenance engineers of Angarsk Petrochemical Company for their trust and great supervision.
PS
Customer considers the fulfilled job as very successful and is planning to do a similar job on the second compressor in the next year.