Plant modernization - Conversion from mixed firing to natural gas in specialty chemicals

For almost 100 years, Hamburg-based H&R Ölwerke Schindler GmbH, a specialty chemicals company, has been operating a refinery for the production of base, white and specialty oils. In order to make the site more flexible and sustainable, especially in times of volatile market conditions, H&R commissioned SAACKE GmbH to convert an existing mixed firing system of the vacuum distillation plant to natural gas. Due to the conversion and the use of natural gas, considerable parts of the previously burned production by-products are now refined into special products. In addition to the resulting increased energy efficiency, further concrete goals were to increase the degree of automation, to reduce emissions in accordance with applicable NOx and CO limits, and to increase safety against failure.

Precise planning from one source
A special challenge was the tight time frame for the implementation, because a plant shutdown means loss of production at the customer's site. In addition, the original combustion system manufacturer was no longer active in the market, so technical documentation was difficult to access. Therefore, the focus was largely on an exact analysis and extensive advance planning in order to reduce the implementation time to a minimum. In the engineering phase, it was necessary to define the pipe routing and connections and to coordinate with additional trades, experts and approving authorities. After several months of preparation, the actual conversion was successfully completed within one week.