The Steamtug Blog

I have had a seriously stressful and extremely busy time at work, but at least now I am doing a job that is both satisfying and interesting for a change. Unfortunately it will only last another couple of weeks… We have 2 new air compressos and with my commissioning and start up experience I was chosen to be the focal point for operations.

How we got these new compressors is an interesting story in itself, and I will try to explain. We have 2 money bags at work, one which a maintenance budget, and the other is a tightly guarded “capital expenditure” bag. Like any big company, you are allow all the money in the world to fix something that is worn out and broken down, but low betide anyone who wants to buy something new! It has to have justification, studies to ensure we are getting the right thing for the job, then a project is started from engineering drawings and design from every possible angle, civil, electrical, instrument, piping classes… oh boy, where does it end! And that is before we even put it out to tender. Believe me, it would be easier to buy a complete new compressor by purchasing each of the 1000 parts as a spare part and putting it together.

So, we have 2 very old medium sized compressors, 1 electric and 1 steam turbine driven unit, both together they just fall short of the amount of air we need. Then there is a another slightly newer electric which blew up 2 years ago while I was in Russia. Since that day, we have hired in (at enormous expense) 2 diesel driven compressors to make up the short fall and keep the place running. Then we begged to buy a new compressor. We were told no, fix the old one. But we cannot get parts! So after a long time (diesels chugging away) they finally agreed to put in place a project to look at the feasability of buying us a new compressor.

As you can imagine, its taken more than 2 years to reach a point where they gave us not 1 but 2 new compressors. Meanwhile, the other poor compressors are due for maintenance, overhaul, etc without the ability to shut anything down. Finally my new compressors arrive and I have been test running them over the past few days. The instrumentation is not ready, they cannot be started from the control room and some of the strategy regarding how we will ride out power dips etc (they are critical to the operation of our plant and must keep going!) has not even been thought through fully. So we are in no way ready to hand these new toys over, and I am the only one who knows how it works!

The vendor and myself set up many of the critical controls on Monday then ran a test run for the afternoon. Tuesday we wanted to run the machine all day to prove our systems were capable of supporting this fabulous new thing. It’s like running in your brand new car! So Tuesday morning we put number 2 on line, shutdown the diesels and unloaded the steamer to 80%. Next we unloaded the electric completely for the first time in more than 2 years, and I decided to prove we how good we were and shut the electric down. We then massaged the steamer to give a high rate of load which would test out our electrical switchgear and cooling water loop. She performed like a rolls royce and all Oh, so quietly! A plant engineer mate of mine walked right up beside the compressor where I was standing and asked “Are we going to run this today?” All I said was, “Are you not listening?” He looked at me with a blank stare then noticed it was on line but you can barely hear it over the noise of the steamer in the building next to us!

The end of the day soon came around, and all the office staff and maintenance people had gone home when I thought it time to put my baby to bed. So I attempted a restart of the electricl compressor in the compressor house, but she just looked at me and said “This is the first rest I have had for ages, and I don’t plan on waking up early for you!”  We had to call in the electricians to investigate why she would not go. They didn’t get there until 7pm and I had planned to be home at 6pm, but could not leave as nobody knows how the new one works! Well it wasn’t electrical! We investigated further and found out the tubes in the intercooler had collapsed because they no longer had air pressure on the outside holding in against the cooling water pressure! So the whole machine was full of water and would take about 1 month to fix! Ha!!!! Now what???

We got permission from the duty manager to leave my new toy on line. I had to do some training sessions for the shift crew on duty so they knew basically what to do, and luckily the vendor was also happy to see his machine get a good run. So I didn’t get home until 9.30pm and dog tired too! I rushed back at 6am to take control for the new dayshift coming in and stayed again until 8pm for the next nightshift. Whew… I am was sure glad when Friday came around. I have now given basic training on our hotch-potch system which we have not finished building yet, but it’s already holding our plant together. Lucky for me it’s a long weekend to celebrate the Queen’s Birthday (many happy returns Liz) I dont have to think about work until Wednesday.