Pipeline Heater Maintenance and Repair

September 11, 2015

Project Challenge

A natural gas storage facility, located in Bienville, Louisiana and owned by a large energy infrastructure company, encountered a leak in a withdrawal heater. The Smalling, 25 million BTU heater was beginning to leak water bath into the fire tube. The natural gas storage facility engaged Action Environmental to repair the 3,500-gallon withdrawal heater.

We were selected because we had:

An alliance contract with the facility
A record of maintaining safety, insurance and quality with ISNetworld
Proven expertise with maintaining and repairing withdrawal heaters

Project Solution

This project presented a unique challenge because the withdrawal heater couldn’t be repaired in the field and would have to be dismantled, relocated offsite, repaired and then returned to the site for reinstallation.

Action Environmental handled the dismantling, logistics and reinstallation, while subcontracting a crane service to relocate the 55,000-pound withdrawal heater to the ASME approved repair shop.

In the photo above you can see how failure of the heaters exhaust box insulation caused saturation with fluids resulting in weld failures and loss of structural plate thickness.