June 2008
The updating and revamping of the FCC unit at Galp’s refinery in Sines have been conducted since last September. The works have lasted two months, as scheduled, and our 1350-ton unit carried out its first task successfully, fully satisfying both our client and the participant engineering specialists.
Due to the coincidence of activities within the unit, this has been the largest stop in 30 years. The crane was assembled in 6 days, time record, two days under schedule. In order to do that, EUROGRUAS took to the area two rapid-intervention hydraulic cranes, one weighing 300 tons and the other 220 tons, to speed up the assembly and disassembly of model LR 11350 SW2. The maneuvers were designed so that it would not be necessary to set in action the loaded crawler.
The works started cutting and disassembling the Reactor Head. This task, since it was the first relevant one, relied on the presence of many managers, both from Galp and from the different contracts, who attended the extraction of the reactor head with the cyclones. The task proved the cohesion of the human and technical team, integrated by Thyssen Krupp-Schmidbauer-EUROGRÚAS, since it was carried out with extreme precision to associate the theoretical load with the real weight at the moment of the cut, working smoothly and steadily, until the piece was lifted over the unit and placed it over a support prepared for the occasion. An analogous operation was carried out with the regenerator.
From that moment on, the renovated elements composing the internal structure were lifted to be replaced. Once the removal and replacement were completed, the new heads and cyclones were put in place, thus concluding the works.
From that moment on, the renovated elements composing the internal structure were lifted to be replaced. Once the removal and replacement were completed, the new heads and cyclones were put in place, thus concluding the works.
(*) Thanks to Mr Alfons Kainer, Planner (Thyssen Krupp) for contributing to the article with photographs.