Traditional basket strainers designed for high flow LPG loading ship applications are inefficient filtering Black Powder. High levels of Black Powder (30 microns and larger) cause basket screens to plug off flow. The most damaging Black Powder, below 30 microns to submicron in size, continues downstream and impedes the LPG loading. The unreliability of traditional basket strainers creates extra maintenance, costly downtime and demurrage penalties.
Test
The company agreed to test a BPS Magnetic Separator Rod (2”OD, 26” long) in a slip stream off a 14” diameter pipe downstream from the pigging process.
Variables
Loading Arm:
16”
Volume of Flow:
10,000 BPH Ethane Propane
Ship Size:
15,000-20,000 M3
Volume
3.2 – 4,2 Million gallons on smaller ships
20.2 – 40.2 Million gallons on larger ships
Solution
The installation of Black Powder Solutions (BPS) Magnetic Separator technology into the existing basket strainers to clean the Black Powder from the LPG down to and below 1 micron.
Results
The BPS Magnetic Separator holding capacity ensured loading of three ships was completed in under three days because it was not necessary to stop loading to clean the basket strainers. In excess of 6kg of Black Powder was captured during loading. The amount of contamination collected indicates the loading process would have shut down 3 times, resulting in 12 hours of downtime and extra maintenance costs. This downtime would have lead to demurrage penalties of $25,000 per day per vessel including the standby vessel.
Loading has extended from three days to 27 days since the installation of BPS Magnetic Separators.
ROI
PS Magnetic Separators are an environmentally responsible solution because they are a cleanable, reusable technology. This $14,000 unit has an operating life of 15+ years. The ROI resulted after the initial 3 loading days eliminating downtime and maintenance providing a reliable LPG loading system. The BPS System cut 9 cleaning intervals to 0 as cleaning was complete in the down interval of 2 days between loading functions. This saved extended demurrage costs of $25,000/day/vessel and labor costs of $8,000.
BPS recommends installing BPS technology before the inlet to compressors and pumps to reduce the volume of Black Powder reaching the final basket strainers prior to loading. By removing high levels of Black Powder from LPG, equipment is protected and production time increases because of system reliability. Furthermore, this process reduces displacement in the storage reservoirs on the boats, allowing for higher volumes of LPG. Finally BPS technology improves product quality and delivers to the customer product which exceeds ISO standards.
