BHGE’s Masoneilan awarded severe service contract for Spain’s largest refinery

CEPSA’s Refinery in San Roque, Cádiz, Spain has awarded BHGE’s Masoneilan the contract to provide the heavy duty Severe Service, angle control valves for the “Bottom-of-the-Barrel” upgrade project consisting of 3 new construction blocks including LC-Fining, Sulphur Unit, and Utilities. The Chevron licensed, LC Finer technology processes highly viscous hydrocarbon left over at the bottom of the vacuum unit through the reactor to produce a higher value low sulfur, mid-distillates for the production of marine diesel. These heavy oil fluids are entrained with catalyst that when processed through high pressure reducing control valves result in severely erosive applications. This milestone contract celebrates a long term relationship supplying BHGE Masoneialn control valves to the CEPSA’s San Roque Refinery since the 1970’s.
“Masoneilan has a very strong reference list for these highly erosive applications that differentiated us on this contract, including winning all expansion projects around the world for residual hydrocracker specialty severe service valves over the last 3 years. Heavy duty control valves including the Masoneilan 74000 series heavy oil processing valves, 77000 series multistage letdown valves, and the 78400 series LincolnLog valves have proven longer operational life in these applications as they are designed for the high pressure drop outgassing fluids that includes high velocity flow with entrained catalysts.”, notes Luca Esposito, BHGE Europe Sales Leader. “Our Conde, France R&D Engineering team has designed uniquely fluted trim features for these 74000 series valves, and have partnered with key suppliers to develop advanced coating processes to further extend the life of these valves. This project adds to our successful installation list of recent hydrocracking projects that are looking for higher reliability of the hydrocracking units with superior valve performance.”