The firetubes were also designed unusually long, so achieving uniform heat transfer was a challenge. Furthermore, the designer had specified heavy wall pipe for the firetubes. This rendered each firetube so heavy that the firetube flanges warped and leaked, and the firetube bolts stretched and sheared off.
February-May, 2023Type your paragraph here.
During the 12 months of 2022 Breakthrough Engenuity LLC was been VERY busy executing engineering and design projects for local and international clients alike.
This all started when a German engineering company inquired about needing assistance in developing and crude oil processing system for its Russian client in for an application in Iraq.
Breakthrough Engenuity supports an EPC firm in Taiwan with engineering and documentation. This firm works with local firms to mitigate air pollution from oil refining, petrochemical, and gasoline distribution plants throughout the country. Two new vapor emission control systems were successfully commissioned and started up during this time frame.
AUGUST 2022
This year has been a fun challenge. A client in Brazil needed help to sort out why its Wash Tank (Gunbarrel) was not performing as they should. After carefully evaluating their process conditions, we formulated a plan ot help them improve their operations by adding specialty internals to a new. We created a new High Efficiency design for them. They handed our drawings off and had the specialty internals installed. The results were amazing. Another happpy client ... just south of hte Amazon River!!
The issue in this project was that the client needed assistance in designing and predicting the performance of a customeized "Gunbarrel" crude oil dehydration tank. The end user had no background in such systems, nor do the German engineering consultant firm.
Breakthrough Engenuity developed several flow models of the system, each predicting the crude oil dehydration performance of the various designs being developed and considered.
After several iteration and many weeks of back-and-forth communi8cations, all parties agreed on Breakthrough's recommended design.
MARCH 2022
MARCH 2023
Fire consumed this client's waste oil reclamation plant in southern Oklahoma. Since one man was killed in the fire, the local authorities demanded maximum care in re-designing a replacement facility, with all due regard for safety. Breakthrough Engenuity was solicited to do the engineering and design for the new facility, and to get its AutoCAD drawings stamped by a professional engineer. Special concern for gas venting were incorporated to minimize the liklihood of the facility emitting a flammabel mixture of hydrocarbons ever again. Breaakthrough's design was stamped and and the new facility was built, and is now in service.
Breakthrough continues to support it's business affiliate KBK Industr4ies with various designs and engineering support.
June 2024
Breakthrough Engenuity LLC
Oil and Gas Industry Focused Professional Engineering and Design Services
Within a few months of start-up the firetube, firetube flange, and firetube bolt failures reached an unacceptable level of frequency. Local experts adn academians were baffled. Pipes of imploded and failed firetubes accumulated in the client's "bone-yard". Since the problems were not yet understood, there was no obvious solution. However, in the first few minutes of the first telephone conversation the discussion turned to burner adjustments and flame patterns.
JANUARY 2022
Once Breakthrough developed the conceptual design and after the client's careful review, dimensional AutoCAD drawings were converted into a 3D model of the facility complete with a detailed Bill of Material. Local equipment fab shops were issued Breakthrough's drawings. Fabrication began and equipment was delivered and set in record time.
Working together both engineering firms evaluated the local issues. CFD models proved that the locally designed Wash Tank could not possibly function. Breakthrough proposed its patented Wash Tank design. That proposal was accepted. The existing Wash Tank internals were removed and replaced with Breakthrough's designed internals. The revamped Wash Tank was put in service and performed as predicted, solving the problem.
January 2023
2024 has presented many new challenges. One major oil company client is fighting a field-wide process system it inherited from another major in a buyout. The original owner attempted a field experiment which included a new way of managing gas-lift produced fluids, leaving intermittently huge quantities of produced gas in oil and water main gathering lines. This ultimately created very difficult separation conditions in a very large production operation. Another client has built a new SWD using surplus tankage, but piped it all wrong. They needed help to redesign the piping configurations to achieve the goal of maximized retention time and clean water for disposal.
June & July, 2023
The principal of a major Brazilian oil company contacted Breakthrough Engenuity to ask for help with a production facility that was mal-performing. The facility was producing about 8,000 barrels of oil daily through free water knockouts, an indirect heater, and finally through a locally designed wash tank. Crude quality ranged from 5% to 40% BS&W, but needed to be below 0.5%.
The Brazilian oil company had hired a local engineering company to help solve the problem, but quickly fired them as they had no plausable solutions. A second local engineering firm with CFD modeling expertise was brought on board and instructed to work with Breakthrough to identify and to solve the oil treating problems.
FEBRAURY 2022
This client was having serious firetube failures in it's Neuquen Basin, Argentina production operations. The heater treaters had been designed and fabricated locally only a few years prior, but the firetubes had failed several times. Local experts were stumped, so the client called Breakthrough Engenuity. Upon preliminary discussions It was obvious that over-firing had occurred, and that burners were mal-adjusted, concentrating all heat release in the first few feet of the firetubes. The firetubes were unusually long, so achievingheat release in the first few feet of the firetubes was beyond hte scope of understanding by operating personnel.
At that point the problem shifted from a comprehension of the causes of the problems to the understanding, complexity, and implementing realistic solutions. Breakthrough was commissioned to draft a fifty-six page report outlining the history of over-firing, the cause of the implosions, a dissertation refuting the theory proposed by others that this crude coked out due to chemnical incompatibilities. It concluded with a recommendation to replace ALL Schedule 60 firetubes with lighter weight pipe and to shorten all firetubes to reduce the overall weigh and failure forces on the flanges and bolts. But most importantly, it recommended several methods of achieving uniform heat transfer once and for all.
The Facilities Engineering Group leader of a major Tesax oil producer called asking about developing a standard ten-well central tank battery (CTB) facility detail and dimensional design for all future 10-well CTBs in the Delaware Basin of west Texas. The concept was to modularize the entire facility so the smae manifolds could be used on every siste, and equipment could be moved freely from one to the next as productioon depletion took its toll. Standardizing could significantly cut both CAPEX, and construction time, adding equivalent oil production and revenue.
The system was prediced to dehydrate crude to <0.25% BS&W. Breakthough's AutoCAD engineering drawings were redrafted by the client for their presentation to the end user, who ultimately bought in and authorized the fabricatrion and installation of Breakthrough Engenuity's Gunbarrel Tank Design. This project took over seven months, but ended in success.