WWV Burghausen knows the plants and especially the columns of PCK better than probably any other contractor. Within the scope of the spring shutdown, service work and new installations on 6 columns and 4 vessels were carried out in the VT1, TP1 and ARO plants. The work included setting and pulling of blanking plates up to DN 1000, opening and closing of manholes DN 500 – DN 800, dismantling and assembly of column internals, repairs and functional tests of spray nozzles and baffle plate distributors, repairs of column trays, dismantling and assembly of distributors, packing beds, support grids and the manufacture and assembly of discharge screens. In the ARO plant, the internals were additionally installed in 2 new columns, new nozzles and welded-on parts for steel construction were supplied and installed for existing columns and vessels. Furthermore, NDT work and water pressure tests were carried out. And in addition to the Columns & Vessels team, colleagues from our Heat tracing department took care of a dedicated work package in their field of specialization.
The spring shutdown was the only large-scale refinery shutdown in Germany in the middle of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The WWV teams actively participated in the hygiene concept, which consisted of four pillars: safety & prevention (through appropriate hygiene measures), education and information (through hygiene training and sensitisation to the topic), professionalism (consistent implementation with partner companies and hygiene experts) and control and monitoring (supervision and documentation of measures and hygiene patrols).
One of the columns has a diameter of up to 8m and is about 70m high. The built-in parts that had to be dismantled, brought to 0m, cleaned, repaired and reassembled are correspondingly large. The lower part of the column was heavily coked and had to be partially cleared for the dismantling work. This also concerned the replacement of a structural packing bed. Here approx. 100m3 packing parts had to be dismantled and reassembled. A major requirement was also the short assembly time of 14 days. This meant that the work had to be carried out under considerable time pressure.
Together with the client’s team and the other partner companies, WWV could be more than proud of the result achieved: All work was successfully completed, no accidents, no product spills and no corona infections on the factory premises.
