PROJECT
PROFILES

Shell OP-II Revamp Project

This project won the national ABC Eagle Award for excellence in construction in 1996.

The OP-II revamp project at Shell Chemical Company's Deer Park Facility consisted of work necessary to restart an existing ethylene plant that had been idle for 14 years. Industrial Specialty Contractors (ISC) was awarded a cost-reimbursable contract by the general contractor, H. B. Zachary, to perform the instrumentation work. One hundred percent of the instrumentation work was self-performed by ISC with an average work force of 40 associates over the 15-month duration of the project.

The scope of ISC's work consisted of installing a new distributed control system, performing a total function check of this instrument system, and executing a large cable installation, as well as miscellaneous and off-site work. The distributed control system included the installation of the control room consoles, work in the remote instrument enclosure, a data highway between the remote instrument enclosure and the consoles, field instruments, home run cabling and raceway, field junction boxes, cabling and conduit to the field instruments, instrument air piping, process tubing and loop check.

The cable installation included a new electrical feeder to the new OP-II motor control center. In addition, ISC installed the emergency depression control system, pump seal pot tubing and analyzer sample stations. ISC's off-site work consisted of a metering skid, as well as work at the Deer Park Refinery Coker unit and OP-II Unit plus the 9th Street pipe rack modifications. ISC was also responsible for the safety management, planning, scheduling, budgeting, cost control, quality assurance and bulk material purchasing for all of these work activities.

The control-room portion of the distributed control included the installation of consoles and cabinets, the connection of the data highway and connections from the uninterruptible power supply system. In the remote instrument enclosure, ISC installed or assisted in the installation of the following systems: Honeywell TDC 3000, Triconex Shutdown Systems, Bently Nevada Vibration System and Compressor Controls Corporation System. Other work included installing interconnecting cabling and raceway, data highway cable, other miscellaneous equipment and all of the control-room and remote instrument enclosure cable terminations.

The first activity for the field portion of the distributed control system work was the installation of the home run instrument cables from the control room to the field junction boxes. This installation consisted of some cable tray applications, but the majority of the cables were pulled through rigid aluminum conduit systems. The 34 home run cables averaged 700 feet each in length.

Additionally, ISC fabricated and installed the 10 junction box racks and the 34 field junction boxes that were installed on the racks. Aluminum conduit was installed from the field junction boxes to each field instrument, and single pair and triad instrument wire was pulled through the conduit from the field junction boxes to the field instruments. ISC also provided air supply and process connections to the field instruments and junction boxes. This work included the installation of supports, angle iron and channel raceway, copper tubing, stainless steel tubing, PVC-coated tubing, tube valves, tube fittings, schedule 80 galvanized pipe ranging in size from 2" to ½", pipe valves, pipe fittings and all associated hardware.

The OP-II Revamp Project contained over 2,500 instrumentation devices. ISC received, calibrated, stored and installed all of these field instruments (including the stands to mount them on). Pre-loop checks were performed on the system, then all of the 899 control loops were checked and turned over to H. B. Zachary and Shell. ISC also provided trained and certified personnel to operate the control room consoles during this loop check phase of the project.

ISC installed approximately 5,000 feet of 250MCM, CLX 15KV cable for the electrical feeders to the new 480-volt motor control center. This cable installation consisted of four separate pulls in an existing cable tray already containing energized cables and located in elevated pipe racks. The 5,000 feet of cable came on four separate reels, each weighing over 15,000 lbs.

This work was not in our original scope, but was assigned to ISC because of our commitment to and track record for high-quality installations. Also, this type installation is one of our specialties, for which we have our own tools, equipment and skilled associates with the necessary expertise.

The emergency compression control system consisted of installing hand valves on a control station in the control room, approximately 10,000 feet of ½" stainless steel tubing, supports and tube tray. The analyzer installations consisted of installing manual-type sample stations, ½" stainless steel tubing and tube tray. For the pump seal pot tubing, stainless steel tubing ranging from ¼" to ¾" and supports were installed.

Several offsite projects were executed during the OP-II Revamp Project. ISC removed and reinstalled instruments to facilitate modifications to the 9th street pipe rack. The refinery coker unit and OP-III unit work consisted of installing several instruments at each location and performing the necessary connections and modification to the control systems. At the process metering skid, several instruments, a junction box, a PLC, omni and a satellite were installed with all of the necessary connections.

As a member of the project construction team, ISC was involved in addressing the situations and problems concerning safety, quality, cost and schedule associated with this large "fast-track," schedule-driven project.

ISC's work force peaked at over 80 associates. Approximately 130,000 work hours were required, entailing total revenues of over 4.5 million dollars. The team concept was important in assuring the successful completion of this project with an exemplary safety record and quality installations, all without interruption of adjacent operating units.