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Ambient Temperature
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Table of contents:
1. PURPOSE
2. SCOPE
3. DESCRIPTION
o
3.3 Methods
1.
PURPOSE
This design guide provides the basic philosophy and an engineering methodology for developing and implementing Heat
Tracing and Winterization design in Oil and Gas projects.
2.
SCOPE
This guide covers the protection of equipment, piping and instruments from the effects of low ambient temperature.
Failure to protect against low ambient temperatures may cause operational upsets and interruption of production.
This document presents all measures to be taken to prevent the effects of ambient condition causing loss of production.
Winterizing includes such procedures as:
1.
2.
Application of insulation;
3.
4.
5.
6.
Agitation;
7.
8.
Providing suitable housing (enclosure), generally accompanied by heating from internal heating
element or by a heating/ventilation system;
Antifreeze solutions such as hydrate formation inhibitor injection, and pour point depressant;
9.
10.
11.
Equipment and Structural design to allow for wind and snow loads.
If project specific criteria are available in FEED documents or Licensor package, the same should be followed in design.
This guide is applicable to process design requirements during the Conceptual Design, FEED, and detailed design
phase of a Project.
Safeguards for personnel protection are not within the scope of this document.
B. DESCRIPTION
Winterization is required for piping components, instruments and equipment to prevent interruptions of plant operations
due to the effects of varying ambient temperature conditions and prevention of personnel to the combined effect of wind,
low ambient temperatures, hot and cold surfaces, falling frozen debris which may be hazardous.
All components shall be designed for the minimum ambient temperature as a minimum, and their integrity shall not be
compromised by loss of winterization.
Safeguards for personnel protection, not within scope of this document, should be considered as appropriate.
It is always the intent, wherever possible and economically justified, to design and select equipment and materials
suitable for the site and environmental conditions, in order to minimize or eliminate the need for investment in
winterization.
Consideration should be given to all stages of installation, commissioning and start-up, operation and shutdown periods,
as well as to winterization of storage facilities and items that will be subject to long-term storage such as spare parts.
The winterization methods are generally based on experience and engineering judgment.
When considering the selection of the appropriate form of winterization for the equipment and systems, the following
factors form the basis of selection:
1.
Safety
2.
Environmental considerations
3.
4.
Economics, including:
1.
3.
Maintenance Costs
b.
c.
Often Client specifies the winter design temperature to be used for air coolers and winterization conditions. Where this is
not specified by the Client, these parameters should be defined by analyzing climatic conditions for the particular
geographic area.
The fluid has a pour point above the minimum ambient temperature;
b.
Water will settle out and collect in instrument tapings, low points and dead legs;
a.
The fluid can freeze or form hydrates including chemicals which congeal/solidify;
b.
The fluid contains a solution where the solute could precipitate at an undesirable location;
c.
The fluid contains a vapour which upon condensation forms a corrosive liquid or may cause operational problems.
This occurs specifically when CO2, SO2 or SO3 are present with water vapour in the gas stream;
d.
The fluid has normal operating temperature below the dew point of the surrounding air and condensation of water
vapour may form on the external surface of pipes and equipment. Dew point varies with relative humidity &
atmospheric condition;
e.
Crude oil and heavy condensate will require heat tracing of equipment, piping and instrumentation when pour point
is higher than minimum ambient temperature. The extent of tracing requirement can be minimized if the system is
equipped with draining and flushing facilities and the same is expected to be positively functional at the time of
shutdown;
f.
Crude oil and heavy condensate will require heat tracing of equipment, piping and instrumentation, where wax
deposition temperature is higher than minimum ambient temperature;
g.
There could be fluid stagnation in pipe segments for long time causing drop in fluid temperature leading to any of the
above mentioned situations.
b.
For process fluids where wax or hydrates might form, 7-10C higher than the hydrate formation temperature or wax
appearance temperature;
c.
Glycol Systems can be winterized for the cases highlighted in section 5.4.1;
d.
Some of the process and utility systems that are influenced by extreme low ambient temperature conditions are outlined
below:
Liquid
Water
-47
-31
-13
Diethanolamine
28
TriEthylene Glycol
-5
Diesel Oil
Aviation Fuel
<-30
The facility design should also take into consideration the start-up of equipment and ensure that the minimum start-up
temperature can be met.
3.3 Methods
The approach to apply winterization to piping and equipment is as follows:
a.
Heat Tracing;
b.
c.
Heated enclosures;
d.
e.
Heat retention;
f.
Maintenance draining;
g.
h.
The type of winterization is selected based on operating range, accuracy of temperature control, characteristics of
process fluid, ease of maintenance, availability of heating system and economic evaluation of available alternatives.
Wherever practical, winterization methods which dont require protective heating should be used.
Methods of heat tracing, heat enclosure and heat flow bypass are described in this section.
Winterization techniques should be indicated on P&IDs.
Maintaining a heated flow at all times through bypass lines, if practical, may be used to avoid heat tracing, e.g.
maintaining stream flow in lines to isolated equipment by provision of a bypass local to the equipment, flow controlled
using manual globe in bypass line.
Similarly, long headers which may at times have no flow may be provided with a bypass line with manual globe valve to
maintain a minimum flow and avoid the requirement for tracing. Back flow through off-line equipment may also be used,
e.g. back flow through standby pump by means of bypass around discharge check valve. One globe valve and a
Restriction Orifice (RO) should be provided in the bypass to restrict the flow.
When a heated flow bypass is specified, heat conservation insulation must be specified. If the heated flow cannot be
maintained for any operational reason, e.g. process unit shutdown, the isolated equipment must be drained to prevent
freezing. Heated flow bypasses should not be used where the plant safety is critical.
Critical services, such as saturated fuel gas lines and associated valves and instruments, in exposed locations;
b.
Excessive cooling and icing up due to auto-refrigeration by Joule-Thompson effect coupled with low temperature at
start-up;
c.
d.
Dead legs.
In case required as per project philosophies/specifications, winterization for safety critical instrumentation and equipment
should have power and control duplicated with back-up power from the Emergency Generator.
Stagnant TEG lines, such as liquid PSV lines, instruments impulse lines etc.
b.
hydrate formation resulting from a combination of high operating pressure and low ambient temperature; and
b.
liquids freezing/congealing in a liquid full system cannot be ruled out. Hence, PSV inlet lines should be reviewed for
possibility of hydrate formation or liquid freezing/congealing and heat tracing provided accordingly.
All the PSV/BDV/PCV outlet lines (to flare) are sloped towards main flare header which is sloped towards flare KOD, no
stagnation of liquid is envisaged in these lines. Thus there should be no liquid accumulation in these lines. With the
relatively low operating pressure (flare back-pressure), hydrates are not likely to form even at very low ambient
temperatures. Nonetheless, these lines should be reviewed for hydrate formation and heat tracing to be provided if
hydrate formation is a possibility. In some cases Client specifications may require the lower half of the flare header/subheader(s) in wet service to be heat traced to prevent water freezing.
When the pressure relief is to the atmosphere, then the discharge line should be heat traced up to 600 mm after the first
vertical bend to prevent freezing of water resulting from atmospheric condensation.
3.4.9 Pumps
Hot Service Pumps
Where the pumped fluid is >150C, a bypass line with valves should be installed around the pump discharge check valve
to avoid thermal shock. When the pump is on standby with the suction valve open, this by-pass valve should be opened
allowing hot process fluid to back flow through the standby pump.
When back flow of hot process fluid to the standby pump is not an option, such as PD pump, heat tracing should be
provided to the pump and its associated components.
Cold Service Pumps
If the service requires the pump to be continuously available, then the pump should be insulated (cold conservation/anticondensation). A 1 bypass line complete with valve should be installed around the pump discharge check valve. When
the pump is on standby with suction valve open, this by-pass valve should be opened allowing process fluid to back flow
through the standby pump.
3.4.12 Instrumentation
If lines contain fluids that meet the criteria stated in Section 5.1, the lines together with their associated instrumentation
(including impulse lines) should be traced. This applies to flow, pressure and analyzer instrumentation. If instruments are
chemically sealed/diaphragm sealed, heat tracing is not required.
If fluids in vessels meet the criteria stated in Section 5.1, level and pressure instruments (and corresponding
connections) connected to the vessels should be winterized.
Special instruments such as analyzers should be located in heated enclosures as appropriate if required to suit the
ambient conditions.
Advice from Instrumentation discipline should be taken with regard to winterization of instrumentation.
The extent of heat tracing on instrument may be reduced if the precautionary measure of using chemical seals or noninvasive measurement techniques to prevent instruments
The Chemical Injection and Chlorination Packages, including the injection lines should be heat traced and insulated
where the chemical is water based and/or has a high pour point, high viscosity, etc.
Process gas lines with dew points higher than the minimum ambient temperature can be subject to condensation in
the piping. Wellhead gas piping coming out of Separators, Compressor suction piping can be subject to liquid carry
over issues. Hydrocarbon gas under pressure can be subject to retrograde condensation over a range of operating
pressures if not adequately superheated.
b.
Similar to above, the plant fuel gas lines can be subject to condensation in the KO Drums, filters, piping, pressure
letdown stations and instrumentation and can carry condensate to burners.
c.
Gas heater should be as close as practical to users; thus, eliminating long runs of supply lines (> 100m).
Calculations should be done for estimation of heat losses from long insulated supply lines.
d.
The condensate knock out pot should be located immediately upstream of gas heater.
e.