Most of us take life in our modern world for granted. Electricity comes from outlets in the wall, drinkable water flows from the tap, and filling up with gas at the station is a necessary evil, somewhat more painful when the price of crude oil is high.
With the world producing over 80 million barrels of oil a day it’s easy to assume that we’ve figured everything out. That it not a complex process and after 100 years ‘we’ve got this.”
That’s one of the things that keeps life fresh at Sure Flow Equipment. Turns out, pumping oil out of the ground or seabed is not simple, and as we work to extract it from deeper wells it gets more complex.
One of our recent fabrication projects was a case in point. It was a complex solution to a challenging application.
The customer required a dual basket strainer to divert well works fluids directly to a tanker and not flow to crude storage tanks. To add to the challenge, it was on a drilling platform in the Atlantic Ocean where space is at a real premium.
Enter our Engineering and Fabrication team, to produce the 10-inch DB150SS stainless dual basket pictured in the photo below.
It was fabricated from 2205 duplex stainless steel. It includes an offset inlet and outlet, and all came together with compact design to fit in a tight area on an oil rig where every inch must be utilized to the maximum.
The unit has legs for positioning and includes high performance lug style butterfly valves for isolation.
The flanged vent and drain connections include gate valves.
With a custom project like this our shipping department was called on to produce special crating for delivery to an upgrade on an offshore drilling platform.
Since it’s going to be spending its productive life in seawater it was fabricated with stainless steel, and then pickled and passivated after welding to maximize its life as discussed in our previous blog:
In installations like these where it’s difficult to get regular deliveries our shipment included spare baskets and gaskets, so the customer would always have replacements on hand.
This dual basket strainer will have a variety of fluids going through it. Wellworks fluids can contain solvents, brines, kill weight fluid, completion fluids, viscous pills, and drilling mud. Suddenly the origin of that magic liquid that makes your car move, begins to take on a new level of complexity.
With a unit like this in an application as challenging as this, the customer required a large amount of documentation and testing.
It was certified by Lloyd’s Register, included an ASME stamp as well as a Newfoundland CRN with three inspectors – Lloyd’s, customer and TSSA.
There is no shortcut to drill for oil safely in a hostile environment and our customer required that Sure Flow Equipment apply the requisite highest level of quality assurance and attention to detail.
Whether it’s strainers in municipal water systems, electrical generation cooling water, or fossil fuel production, Sure Flow Equipment products are used in so many of the applications that make our lives so comfortable.
As always, our team was up to this challenge and proud when the unit finally left the plant. That feeling of satisfaction never lasts too long as everyone got focused on the next project. And when we left the plant and got into our vehicles we could all take a minute and appreciate the efforts that go into allowing us the freedom that our modern fuels provide.
