Crude Distillation Unit Modernization Piping & Equipment Coating & Fireproofing
An international oil and gas company invested approximately $3.8 billion to modernize its refinery in northwest Indiana to increase heavy oil processing capability and upgrade environmental performance.
The project included reconfiguring the largest of three crude distillation units and adding new coking capacity and associated processing units. The refinery upgrade was the largest privately funded construction project in North America to date, with the crude distillation unit the most complex and difficult to execute phase.
CHALLENGE
Brock Industrial Services was contracted to coat and fireproof the facility’s largest crude distillation unit. This included painting 250,000 linear feet of piping; touching up 1.5 million square feet of structural steel, the crude heater and vacuum heater (each among the largest in the industry), 54 exchangers, 50 pumps and four towers; and fireproofing 125,000 square feet of connection points, 48 exchanger saddles and the vessel skirts of three towers.
