Michael Lemeshev - MOGAS Industries Inc.
A stepwise (three-tiered) approach is required to reduce pressure in a safe and mechanically feasible manner. Each stage reduces the reaction pressure by flowing the products through a specialized control valve. These valves have an extremely short life cycle, especially when compared to the time frame between regularly scheduled hydrocracking unit shutdowns. There is a need for redundancy in this circuit. If a specialty control valve lasts for six months, there must be a way for the unit not to have to shut down to switch to and utilize a spare control valve.
Let-down modules allow for this exact operation. However, there is much to be considered from a safety and operability standpoint. Consider a setup that allows switching, while the unit is up and running, between a standby control valve and an operational one. With pressures across the control valves that can be more than 1000psi and temperatures at over 900o F, these valves are very shock sensitive. It makes sense not to shock them thermally. Additionally, the flow contains hydrogen, which if in a high enough concentration and leaked, it can be an asphyxiant.
Typically, EPC’s are not equipped, from an experiential standpoint, to fully attend to all these issues/aspects. It pays huge dividends to have an experienced manufacturer, like MOGAS, provide a literal plug-and-play module that is capable and safe.
Michael Lemeshev is the MOGAS SME – Refining & Petrochemicals. Michael Lemeshev has been in the refining and petrochemical industries for 25 years and with MOGAS since 2014. While his industry experience includes product and project engineering and the design of flow control and isolation systems, he is most active in technical training and project execution by partnering with end users / refiners, licensors and engineering companies to bring total solutions. A graduate from Texas A&M University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering, Michael has been a contributing subject matter expert for industry publications.