US East Coast Refinery Cleans Challenging FCC

Challenge

A customer needed to perform internal repairs on their FCC. They suspected tray damage and collapsed packing in bottom of the Main Fractionator. They were concerned about heavy deposits (catalyst, coke, asphaltenes/tar, pyrophoric iron sulfide),  historically requiring multiple shifts to clean. They also needed to reduce LEL & H2S quickly to get out of the flare for environmental regulations.

Solution

ZymeFlow worked with refinery personnel for several months to engineer custom procedures focused on speed and safety, including reducing mechanical cleaning time and allowing the refinery to get off the flare quickly. Utilizing several proprietary chemistries, specific methods of application were established to achieve these goals. Significant time was saved on each step including eliminating 2 shifts for de-inventory and oil washing. More time was saved cleaning the fractionator, eliminating extensive flare usage . All hot work and maintenance was performed without incident, exceeding the customer’s expectations.