Challenge
A national pipeline logistics company with several pipelines crossing Southern California regularly needs to perform maintenance and repairs. Project scopes range from one vacuum truck removing a few barrels of product from a single valve box over a few hours to full blown, multi-line segment drain-downs, nitrogen sweeps, integrity tests, and pipeline reinstatement. The challenge lies in the storage of residual product in temporary tanks, the scrubbing of vacuum truck exhaust, and the efficient combustion of pipeline vapors in thermal oxidizers during blowdowns and degassing. These vapors are being scrubbed within South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) – arguably the most regulated air in the world.
Solution
Envent regularly provides temporary tank vapor control systems using their line of carbon vessels, sized efficiently based on stored product influent flow rates into a single tank or banks of 20 tanks. These systems are closely monitored and the results are recorded to document system effectiveness. Product going into these tanks is vacuumed from the pipeline segments. Those vacuum trucks are usually located at several key locations across the pipeline network. To properly abate the vapors off the vacuum trucks, Envent will supply three, four, sometimes even five separate EVAC 1000 trailer mounted vacuum truck exhaust scrubbers for quick deployment and relocation. As the vacuum trucks move from line segment to line segment and then to the temporary tanks, EVAC scrubbers are re-positioned for reliable intermittent or continuous use. When the pipeline needs to be blown down or swept with nitrogen or refilled back into service, Envent’s EMTOS and EMECS lines of thermal oxidizers are the best available control technology for safety, efficiency, and reliability.
Benefit
Envent’s line of carbon vessels range from 200 LB carbon drums up to 5000 LB carbon vessels. Depending on the quantity of temporary tanks, product stored, and duration of project, Envent can provide low maintenance passive vapor scrubber systems. Envent’s temporary tank systems can be set up adjacent to residential areas without any concern for odors leaving the facility. The EVAC line of vacuum truck scrubbers are a versatile equipment line. These scrubbers are reliable because there are no moving parts, no emissions to report, no waiting for equipment warm-up, and can even be operated by the customer for increased savings. Finally, the EMTOS and EMECS mobile thermal oxidizers range from 250 CFM rating to 6000 CFM rating and provide up to 70″ water column vacuum for fast blowdowns and nitrogen sweeps. And with over 13 different thermal oxidizers sized appropriately for the particular project parameters, Envent provides odor free results with 99.999% destruction of vapors
