Hydrocarbon Processing - February 2022 - 80

Water Management
One major cause of delays that extend downtime is waiting
for vital replacement parts. Generally, these are ordered beforehand;
however, not all issues can be anticipated. Having a water
treatment specialist involved in the shutdown might lead to a
faster solution. They have the skills and knowledge to provide
support to operators and contractors or perform much of the
maintenance and repair work on water treatment equipment.
For example, the technician can perform maintenance on dosing
systems, from replacing pump diaphragms and liquid ends to
tubing and injection quills. Upgrading controllers, or installing,
programming and commissioning new ones can take excessive
time when done by untrained personnel. This also applies to
replacing ion exchange and other pre-treatment equipment controllers,
heads and media, as well as programming and commissioning
them. If reverse osmosis or nanofiltration membranes
require cleaning or replacement, the technician can quickly and
efficiently complete that task. By having the water treatment specialist
perform this work, operators are free for other shutdown
tasks while knowing that the job is performed properly.
Water treatment: Planning for a shutdown. The moment
the water leaves the ground to the moment it is released to the
municipal sewer lines is the space where water treatment operates.
After integrating with the internal team to conduct the
inspection and prep a shutdown action list, water specialists
should collaborate with supervisors to create a maintenance
schedule that coincides with their timeline. This includes
meeting with scaffolding, plumbing and electrical contractors
to coordinate workflows, as well as reviewing safety permits to
create lockout procedures and present a workplace safety plan.
With a team of as many as five technicians, the water treatment
staff will check every inch of the system using a series of
inspection and testing methods, applying years of experience
in the field to identify potential issues (FIG. 2).
Treatment product pumps, injectors, tubing and valves can
succumb to time, particularly if they are improperly inspected
and maintained. Containment tanks and storage tanks can
display signs of corrosion, blockages, leaks and other physical
damage that can cause danger to operators, waste products, increase
costs and detrimentally affect the dosing rates, leading
to insufficient treatment. Probe and chemical injection piping
racks must be inspected and cleaned.
Often, valves that may have never been turned or resealed
slowly corrode without showing external signs of degradation.
Corrosion monitoring stations can detect some of these
issues, but they also require inspection for proper operation.
Conversely, deposits can form that will prevent the proper seating
of valves, slow velocity through the piping and reduce heat
transfer efficiency in heat exchangers. Clean-in-place (CIP)
systems can remedy some of these issues by using a mix of
chemicals, heat and water to clean process pipes, vessels and
machinery. CIP systems reduce or eliminate the need to dismantle
parts of the system.
What is discovered when checking and maintaining filtraFIG.
2. Inspections require an experienced eye for traces of possible
problems.
tion systems may impact what must be done during a shutdown.
Changes in feedwater quality can cause the media in
carbon, multi-media, softeners or other filtering units and the
membranes in reverse osmosis systems to foul more quickly,
leading to reduced efficiency, production rates and pressures. If
the water quality has changed dramatically, resetting the proper
maintenance schedule for these units requires testing and
monitoring. Ion exchange units may need a deep-cycle clean or
require resin replacement to ensure throughput and exchange
capacity are maintained.
Case study: Evidence in the boiler. An oil and gas facility
in Alberta planned a shutdown with all the proper checklists
and schedules in place. Managers included a team of special
technicians from the site's water treatment servicer to assist
with the maintenance, cleaning, refurbishing and installation
of equipment related to the boiler system.
Although a specialist was invited to do a preliminary inspection,
a full assessment was impossible until the system shutdown
had fully drained the boiler and pipes. Once that was
accomplished, technicians were able to get inside the vessels.
A close inspection with the naked eye is vital, as shown in
FIG. 3. A water treatment specialist personally inspecting the steam
drum of a boiler.
80 FEBRUARY 2022 | HydrocarbonProcessing.com
FIG. 3. If the specialist's participation is consistent, pictures are
compared to the previous shutdown, as well as samples that
provide a clearer idea of the scope of any issue.
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