Facilities carefully plan inspections and maintenance to avoid unplanned downtime. Even with the best-laid and executed plans and best-in-class safety protocols and procedures, sometimes disaster strikes.
Zeeco’s Global Field Services engineers and support specialists are strategically located around the world to ensure plants facing unplanned downtime are quickly returned to service. Within Zeeco’s Global Field Services group, the Disaster Response Team (DRT) exists to respond to any facility that needs immediate aerial drone inspections, equipment assessments, and heroic repair and rental solutions for returning to service safely after a hurricane or other disaster strikes.
After dispatch and deployment to the stricken facility, the DRT assesses damage and informs Zeeco’s product groups what equipment and services are needed to get the facility back on line. The DRT then coordinates and brings on line any rental flares, vapor recovery units or other equipment to return the facility to service, while Zeeco engineers work on designing, manufacturing and delivering the permanent solution, which is then installed by the Global Field Services group.
What does Zeeco emergency support look like from the facility’s perspective?
On Aug. 29, 2021, Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm, made landfall in the greater New Orleans area, causing major damage to many refineries and fuel terminals. The damage in the New Orleans area forced oil companies to pull product from ExxonMobil in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The increased throughput exceeded the facility’s current vapor recovery unit capacity, requiring a larger vapor control solution immediately.
Zeeco mobilized the largest trailer-mounted Zephyr Vapor Combustor Unit (VCU) in its rental fleet over the Labor Day weekend. Global Field Services dispatched technicians to receive the rental unit and commission it on-site on Sept. 6. Zeeco provided 24/7 on-site VCU monitoring for the duration of the emergency rental and rig up. The Zephyr performed as expected, and the facility met the increased emissions requirements for the expanded use period.
From refineries and petrochemical plants to LNG, power, and gas processing plants, Zeeco provides the engineering expertise and flexible service agreements that make it the first choice in comprehensive field services. The Zeeco Global Field Services group offers maintenance, troubleshooting and spare parts for all major manufacturers’ equipment.
The Zeeco Global Field Services group’s capabilities include:
- Vapor control: emissions testing, automation
- Installation and construction
- Turnarounds
- Pipelines: commissioning, blowdowns, pigging, odorization/pickling
- Disaster response
These capabilities are all backed by the full engineering strength of Zeeco burners, flares, thermal oxidizers, vapor control, rentals, and aftermarket and combustion electronics.