Celeros Flow Technology has injected new life into a heritage pump for a Canadian heavy oil recovery customer, enabling them to extend manufacturing. The pump – a Mather & Platt BB5 – was more than forty years outdated and had been subject to quite a few post-installation alterations.
Heavy oil deposits are extraordinarily viscous and require the injection of high strain, high temperature steam to improve fluidity and allow the oil to be pumped to the surface. In order to spice up extraction on this project, the shopper needed to increase water temperatures from 90° C to 140° C. However, there have been issues that the existing pump might not be capable of ship this requirement. Nozzle loads have been a specific concern. They turned to Celeros Flow Technology brand ClydeUnion Pumps, their most well-liked provider of some 20 years, for help.
Mather & Platt is certainly one of several heritage pump manufacturers for which Celeros Flow Technology presents full lifecycle support1. Unsung engineering team undertook a radical examination of the quadragenarian Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) boiler feed water pump used in the heavy oil extraction process. The investigation revealed that the pump had suffered a variety of seal failures over time that had broken the stuffing field and affected operational efficiency. There had also been no maintenance interventions for many years – however the pump had by no means actually failed.
Says Mike Golds, Global Upgrade and Rerate Programme Manager for ClydeUnion Pumps: “It is testament to the standard of the unique pump that it had continued to function in such harsh circumstances and with no common maintenance over such a protracted time period. More importantly, it gave us confidence that a thorough overhaul might achieve the desired improvement in efficiency, saving the customer the fee and misplaced production time that can be related to sourcing and putting in a new unit.”
Celeros Flow Technology overhauled the SAGD pump and carried out a mechanical seal improve and Plan 23 seal flush to optimize pump performance. In addition, finite element evaluation was undertaken to substantiate that the nozzle masses would withstand the desired temperature enhance. As a result, the pump is now able to delivering steam on the larger temperatures required. The seal upgrades guarantee it meets the latest specs.
Concludes Mike Golds: “We are actually happy with the end result of the SAGD pump upgrade. It has not solely achieved the desired production increase for the customer, but additionally provided a more sustainable and cost-effective solution than complete pump replacement. Using trendy engineering and analysis, we’ve been in a position to give the present pump a new lease of life and ensure it’ll continue to carry out nicely for many extra years.”
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