Petroleum Refining

An engineering firm reached out to Valin to help support a major California refinery during its turnaround process. During the course of their work, the engineering firm discovered the refinery needed new emergency safety shut-off valves (also known as chopper valves) as part of their regeneration process. At this point, the firm reached out to our team for guidance, so we held a strategic session with all interested parties.

The next generation control technology using reinforcement learning-based AI ( FKDPP) will autonomize areas that could not be automated with existing control methods while ensuring safety and improving productivity. FKDPP is a disruptive innovation that allows for a different dimension of control, particularly in such areas. This AI technology can be applied in the energy, materials, pharmaceuticals, and many other industries.

Valin offered a one-stop-shop solution with competitive pricing to both the engineering firm and the refinery for both the process valves and the Emerson Redundant Control System with UL certification. Valins solution assisted the customer in overcoming issues they had gone through in the past with other vendors who took a significantly long time to get panels approved with the class ratings at a significantly higher price.

One element of operations that refineries must assure is handled is the purchasing and storage of all the parts necessary to allow the plants to run efficiently. Learn how Valins Inventory Management Services Program did just this for one major refinery.

A maintenance manager at one of the largest petroleum refiners in the U.S. noticed that many of their duct heaters were failing. Each location has hundreds of industrial duct heaters that provide forced flow heat convection. It had become the #1 maintenance issue at this location. Learn more.

A refinery was injecting a catalyst into their process stream to strip out the propane-impregnated HF gas (mixed gas is a by-product of the FCC process), but the catalyst would only work at temperatures above 385F. Valin's process team analyzed the situation and made recommendations. Learn more.

A major refinery was looking for a way to control the distribution and handling of instrumentation products during a dual turnaround. Valin's material handling solution took the burden off the refinery's planners and freed up their time to work on more important tasks. Learn more.

A Valin refinery customer planned a maintenance outage and had an urgent need for two critical valve replacements. Valin's technical specialists worked with their top valve supplier to provide a solution to meet the high-pressure requirements and critical delivery needs.

By using higher performing electric actuators from the motion control industry to control valves in the process industries, customers can achieve higher performance and better control for their processes.

Accidents such as the Deepwater Horizon, Macondo Prospect, well blowout and explosion that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, and the gas leak in the Elgin Field in the North Sea in 2012, are causing the industry to rethink its approach to pressure monitoring during drilling and production.

Valin worked with a refinery that was processing approximately 145,000 barrels (5.7 million gallons) of crude oil per day. The refinery has a 2 Column Jet Fuel Clay Treater that came online in 1960 with a treat rate of 750 GPM. This technology is very inefficient and outdated. Learn more.

Valin was asked to provide a compact, failsafe electric actuation solution for high torque metal seated ball valves in a severe process application.

Because coal is dusty, it is common for mining and power plants to minimize the dust by spraying down the coal with a water-based chemical solution. In the colder months of the year, however, this solution causes the coal to freeze together in clumps and stick to the cold walls of the coal chute.

Valin had an opportunity to work on an application to heat-trace various process lines for temperature maintenance and freeze protection at an oil processing plant in Stockton, California.

A major refinery in the Northwest (with a production capacity of 225,000+ barrels per day) Fast Tracked a project to capitalize on receiving Crude Oil supplies via Rail Car from the Oil Boom region in the Dakotas.

When assessing the filtration needs at a major refinery, one of Valins technical specialists discovered that there was no standardization in regard to the filters used in the safety showers and eyewash stations.

One of the worlds leading manufacturers of industrial gas turbines had a problem that needed solving and Valin acted as the general contractor for this job providing project management, supervision and all of the cable and components.

To meet growing demand for distillates and to also meet environmental and regulatory compliance, a large refinery in the Northwest began construction of a new Ultra low Sulphur Diesel Unit.

A major refinery in California turned to Valin to help them solve a problem with their sample cylinders. This customer has many sample cylinders that are used to transport a process sample from a refinery unit to the lab to test for recipe accuracy. They are using cylinders from multiple suppliers.

Valin Becomes the Go-To Source for Major Chemical Processing Company in Utah.

A Major Refinery in Washington Realizes a 20% Savings on their Maintenance Labor Thanks to Valin.

Standardized systems and organization can cut costs and improve production and efficiency. Learn how we helped a refinery go from 4 filtration systems to 1.