Celeros Flow Technology has injected new life right into a heritage pump for a Canadian heavy oil recovery buyer, enabling them to extend production. The pump – a Mather & Platt BB5 – was greater than 40 years previous and had been topic to quite a few post-installation alterations.
Heavy oil deposits are extraordinarily viscous and require the injection of excessive pressure, excessive temperature steam to enhance fluidity and allow the oil to be pumped to the surface. In order to boost extraction on this project, the shopper needed to increase water temperatures from 90° C to 140° C. However, there have been considerations that the existing pump may not be ready to ship this requirement. Nozzle masses were a selected concern. They turned to Celeros Flow Technology brand ClydeUnion Pumps, their most popular provider of some 20 years, for help.
Mather & Platt is certainly one of a number of heritage pump brands for which Celeros Flow Technology offers full lifecycle support1. Their aftermarket engineering staff undertook a radical examination of the quadragenarian Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) boiler feed water pump used within the heavy oil extraction process. The investigation revealed that the pump had suffered a quantity of seal failures over time that had broken the stuffing field and affected operational efficiency. There had additionally been no upkeep interventions for many years – however the pump had never truly failed.
Says Mike Golds, Global Upgrade and Rerate Programme Manager for ClydeUnion Pumps: “It is testomony to the standard of the original pump that it had continued to function in such harsh situations and with no common maintenance over such a long time frame. More importantly, it gave us confidence that a thorough overhaul may achieve the specified improvement in efficiency, saving the shopper the price and lost manufacturing time that can be related to sourcing and installing 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 Best , finite factor analysis was undertaken to substantiate that the nozzle hundreds would withstand the desired temperature increase. As a end result, the pump is now able to delivering steam at the higher temperatures required. The seal upgrades guarantee it meets the most recent specs.
Concludes Mike Golds: “We are actually happy with the result of the SAGD pump upgrade. It has not solely achieved the desired production enhance for the shopper, but also supplied a more sustainable and cost-effective answer than total pump substitute. Using modern engineering and evaluation, we have been in a position to give the existing pump a model new lease of life and guarantee it’ll proceed to carry out well for lots of more years.”
Share