PROJECT
PROFILES

ExxonMobil ROCC Phase I Re-Instrumentation Project

This project won an ABC Bayou Chapter Award of Excellence in 2006.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana - The $2,150,000 ROCC Level 1 re-instrumentation project was completed in June, 2005, nine months after two ISC teams mobilized at the ExxonMobil Refinery in October of 2004. Altogether, the work required over 25,000 man-hours, 90 percent of which was self-performed. The contract reflected the job’s “split personality,” with a lump-sum component for the more predictable aspects of the work and a time and materials (T&M) component for cutovers and other work that required more flexibility.

Part of the work involved new construction and part entailed modification of existing systems. Some activities were clearly defined and scheduled in advance. Others were far less predictable. ExxonMobil therefore decided to manage the work as two different instrumentation and electrical jobs under a single contract. Each required its own management staff, supervisors, coordinators, and field craftsmen.

The ROCC (Refinery Operations Control Center) is the heart of ExxonMobil’s 500,000 bbl/day operation on the banks of the Mississippi in Baton Rouge. Because it monitors and controls virtually every aspect of the 2,100-acre facility, its systems connect hundreds of instruments on cracking towers, distillation units, storage tanks and pipe manifolds separated by roads, bridges and railroad lines. ISC replaced most of this complex system with entirely new equipment, buildings, raceways and more than 3000 instrument loops to improve monitoring at four process units called pipe stills 7, 8, 9 and 10.

The duration of ISC’s lump-sum work was expected to be six months, and firm, staggered completion dates were set for each of the four pipe stills. Among other things, lump-sum work included the installation and start-up of two new, 65-foot remote instrument enclosure (RIE) buildings to serve as termination points for more than 356 miles of new, 144-core fiber-optic cables from the ROCC. Each building required installation of independent power supplies and controls.

Fiber-optic cables were routed from the ROCC to the two new RIE buildings via galvanized, epoxy-painted, fireproofed cable trays with tray covers, all of which were installed by ISC. From those two buildings, 50-pair and 60-pair homerun instrument cables were routed to more than 75 field-mounted junction boxes and four satellite buildings within the pipe stills.

ISC’s lump-sum work continued inside the ROCC, where new fiber-optic cable cabinets and patch cords were installed to receive data from the fiber-optic field networks and distribute it to displays and controls. Fireproofing of all conduits and cable trays was included in designated areas within the pipe stills, along with epoxy-painting of critical cable trays and scaffolding for all work done at elevation.

ISC’s time-and-materials assignments revolved around the cutovers from the old system to the new network. Each of the four pipe stills was cut over in sequence as related lump-sum activities were completed. This difficult, tedious work included the de-termination of old cables and re-termination of more than 41,000 feet of new 50- and 60-pair instrument cables in 75 field junction boxes and satellite buildings. On average, each enclosure required 180 of these terminations.

In addition to the cutovers, ISC installed nine new thermocouple boxes, four new marshalling panels, four HPM cabinets, and 11 new analog boxes, along with all associated wiring in the RIE structures and satellite buildings. Due to security constraints and the sensitivity of critical equipment, the T&M scope also included testing, terminating, and fusion-splicing all fiber-optic cables in the ROCC.