The Alfa Laval Compabloc compact heat exchanger cuts downtime and service cost

Nynäs Petroleum is one of the major producers of bitumen in northern Europe. The bitumen is used for road asphalt, roof tar and pipelinecoating. Their production also includes speciality oils such as naphthenicoils used in transformers.

DATE 2023-11-28

The replacement of the shell & tube heat exchangers with Compablocs has also resulted in a drastic reduction in exchanger downtime.

When the shell & tube exchangers were in operation they had to be cleaned once per year. Local regulations also stipulated that they had to be opened every year for inspection. This operation took one week per exchanger.

 

Products

The Compabloc is a high-efficiency all-welded compact heat exchanger designed for aggressive or hazardous process services. It is available in six sizes with heat transfer areas ranging between 0.7 to 320 m2 (7 to 3 450 sqft).

 Compabloc  

Benefits

With the change to Compablocs, the service downtime for all the exchangers except one unit over a three-year period has therefore decreased from three weeks to one day.

This translates into a reduction of the service cost from Euro 25,000 to less than Euro 1,000 per exchanger.

Customer

Nynäs operates refineries in Sweden, Belgium, England and Scotland. In the Gothenburg refinery there are now eleven Compabloc heat exchangers in successful operation.