PROJECT
PROFILES

BASF Aniline / MNB II Project

This project won an ABC Pelican Chapter Merit Award and a Louisiana Contractor Merit Award in 2000.

BASF approved a $69 million expansion in 1998 at their Geismar, Louisiana chemical plant that included new aniline and MNB plants, as well as upgrades to the wastewater stripper and cooling tower. Work spanned 21 months and concluded in July 2000. Total project manpower peaked at 420 craftsmen from all participating contractors.

Engineering was executed by Kvaerner Process in Bridgewater, New Jersey, and major construction contracts were awarded to various civil and mechanical contractors.

Industrial Specialty Contractors (ISC) was retained for electrical and instrumentation work, along with process tubing and electrical power for heat tracing. ISC also played an important role in the design phase, and this was a key reason that the project was completed on time, under budget and with no lost time accidents or recordable injuries.

Work began with the owner and other participating contractors on constructability and safety issues in August 1999 under a newly adopted “Tier Two” construction services agreement with BASF. When the project was complete, ISC associates had worked 78,449 man hours on electrical and instrumentation, and an additional 17,126 man hours on heat tracing. ISC manpower peaked at 115, with an average of 62 workers on site throughout the project.

The project was divided into four major work areas: the aniline unit, MNB II unit, waste water stripper and OSBL (offsite construction). Most construction took place in and near a 90-foot structure housing a 180-ton reactor and MNB unit, both of which were additions to existing process systems.

ISC’s work required nearly 80 miles of wire and cable, almost 3 miles of cable tray and 12 miles of electrical conduit. Instrument air supplies alone required 8,610 feet of piping, and more than a mile of process tubing was installed.

ISC received, checked and installed 476 field instruments, and the project included more than 1,600 control loops, each of which had to be checked before sign-off by the ISC and BASF field technicians on the start-up team. ISC installed 676 light fixtures with 85 lighting panels, plus associated disconnects, junction boxes and transformers. ISC installed 27,000 feet of unistrut and angle iron to support these systems.