Sour Coke Drum

When cracks were found in a sour crude coke drum at a 230,000 barrel-per-day refinery built to convert crude oil into transportation fuels and home heating oil, the facility contracted Brock Industrial Services to erect heavy duty scaffold so operations could continue until repairs could be made safely and successfully during a planned outage.

The customer brought the request to Brock Industrial based on trust and understanding of our commitment to execution excellence, demonstrated throughout twelve years of services performed on-site.

CHALLENGE
Engineer and build a 175-foot tall scaffold capable of supporting 120 heat stress-relieving machines weighing 96,000 pounds total.

SOLUTION
More than 7,200 pieces of material were used to construct the scaffold, which also measured 28 feet wide by 30 feet deep. To reduce the risks associated with material handling, a 500-ton crane lifted the material to scaffold builders working at heights up to 170 feet. Sixteen Brock Industrial scaffold builders tallied 1,964 incident-free work hours during the project. The scaffold load ratings and design were a joint effort between Brock Industrial site management and a third-party engineering firm. Team members with decades of experience designing and installing scaffolding agree that the scope, challenges, and solution in this case were truly unique, both within Brock and across the industry.

RESULTS
The high risk engineered scaffold was built within the customer’s tight time frame. A total of 14,000+ pieces of material were handled during erection and dismantling without one piece dropped or damaged.

CONCLUSION
Brock Industrial exceeded the customer’s schedule and safety benchmarks while meeting the additional requirement that the facility remain operational until the scheduled outage. Our ability to quickly respond, develop, and install a viable solution allowed the customer to avoid a potentially significant loss of revenue.