C4 Caverns

Completion Date

February 2009

Services

Plant Design
Mechanical
Scheduling Estimating
Civil / Structural
Electrical
Project Management
Procurement

Industry

Location

Mid-South

This project was implemented to improve the refinery’s normal butane acquisition handling and off-season storage strategies. A reduction in offsite railcar storage was accomplished by adding pumps, piping, and associated equipment necessary to route normal butane to and from a LPG cavern. The project allows the refinery to eliminate railcar containment of excess normal butane, improve safety, reduce the possibility of improper product routing by utilizing a new manifold system, reduce butane acquisition and storage costs, and increase available storage for LPG due to new gasoline vapor pressure regulations. Additionally, this project will eliminate the reliance on railroads, improve the operability of the normal butane handling infrastructure, improve the flexibility of handling HF Alky feed during upsets, and maintain the capability for the refinery to transfer normal butane. The Scope of Work includes new equipment, piping, and instrumentation.

Laser scan technology was employed to locate existing equipment and interferences, proving an extremely valuable tool around complex storage spheres and piping rundown manifolds. SmartPlant 3D technology was used to build a model of the new installation. All piping isometrics and structural steel drawings were extracted from the 3D model.