Glycol Dehydration Unit

The fuel gas system at a large Midwestern refinery had experienced numerous problems with leakage and fouling with sludge. A team of reliability experts determined that water in the fuel gas system was the primary cause of corrosion and sludge formation. A Glycol Dehydration Unit (GDU) was installed to treat the plant's fuel gas supply in order to improve the reliability and integrity of the existing fuel gas system.

Valdes Engineering Company provided all detailed engineering including process engineering, piping design, pipe stress analysis, civil/structural design, instrumentation and electrical engineering as well as project management services for this new $25MM unit. The scope included 30 pieces of new equipment and more than 100 piping circuits, 3,500 feet of OSBL piping, and electrical feeds from remote PDC's. The 3D plant design model was created on Valdes' Intergraph PDS 3D system. Tie-in locations and interference avoidance was accomplished by using laser scanning to locate and identify existing equipment and facilities.