IBP1260_12 REPLACEMENT OF FIVE MAIN BLOCK VALVES WITHOUT INTERRUPTION OF NORMAL OPERATION IN A REMOTE NGL STATION PLACED AT 13400

FT AMSL, CHALLENGE AND STRATEGIES Yamil Quinto1, Raul Morales 2, Gerson Elorreaga3
Copyright 2012, Brazilian Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels Institute - IBP
This Technical Paper was prepared for presentation at the Rio Oi & Gas Expo and Conference 2012, held between September, 1720, 2012, in Rio de Janeiro. This Technical Paper was selected for presentation by the Technical Committee of the event according to the information contained in the final paper submitted by the author(s). The organizers are not supposed to translate or correct the submitted papers. The material as it is presented, does not necessarily represent Brazilian Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels Institute opinion, or that of its Members or Representatives. Authors consent to the publication of this Technical Paper in the Rio Oil & Gas Expo and Conference 2012 Proceedings.

Abstract
The present paper is aimed to share experience of the replacement of five block valves carried on in a pressure reduction station remotely operated and located in a remote area in The Andes of Peru at 13400 ft AMSL. To accomplish the job, it was necessary the construction of a temporary bypass made of carbon steel pipeline with its own regulating, instrumentation and automation facilities, hence capable of reduce the NGL pressure, controlled and remotely operated by a SCADA system. The temporary bypass connection and disconnection to put on service was carried out using Hot Tap and Line Stop equipment. The replacement of the five block valves was met without interruption of the hydrocarbons flow, and resetting the pressure reduction station to steady operating conditions. Besides the operating works these activities involve safety considerations for personal working in high altitudes. The outputs were the successful replacements of the block valves, and most important was that the NGL continuous flow was met, so both the production and processing plants were supplied with the daily transportation rates in standard conditions, and in accordance with the requirements of the plant operation.

1. Introduction
The NGL Camisea pipeline transportation system owned by Transportadora de Gas del Per, is the unique Gas pipeline in the country, which consists of 560 km; and takes the NGL from the Camisea reservoirs and production plant to the processing plant. The NGL pipeline begin in the jungle and have in between 04 pump stations to reach and get across the Andes at 15900 ft AMSL, ending in the Coast at 50 ft AMSL, it is in these steps where the system has three Pressure Regulation Stations which reduce the upstream pressure to six bar average. The issue we dealt with was the replacement of five main block valves in one of the Pressure Reduction Station of the pipeline transportation system. As we analyze the flaw variables in aboveground facilities of hydrocarbons pipeline transportation systems, valve seal flaws are a common problem; this problem becomes critical when it occurs in block valves, and even more if we are dealing with liquid hydrocarbons. Valve sealing flaws in block valves are in most cases the beginning of problems in the maintenance tasks performed to the facility which is isolated by the valve. In the case of a pressure reduction station remotely operated, this problem complicates the operation, and also the maintenance of filtering system and control valves, as well as replacement of valve spare parts, to name an example. Failure performing these tasks can have serious consequences for the pipeline operation.

______________________________ 1 Mechanical Engineer COMPAIA OPERADORA DE GAS DEL AMAZONAS 2 Mechanical Engineer COMPAIA OPERADORA DE GAS DEL AMAZONAS 3 Mechanical Engineer COMPAIA OPERADORA DE GAS DEL AMAZONAS

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Figure 1. Camisea NGL Transportation System In our case, the following leakage rates were detected in five main block valves, one of them was in the mainline at the inlet block valve of the PSR and the other four of them were the block valves of the regulating bridge, this leakage test was made having the valve greased in order to get better seal. Table 1. PRS Valves leakage rates Valve TAG XV 57001 XV 57003 XV 57004 XV 57005 XV 57006 Size / Class 10 / #600 10 / #600 10 / #600 10 / #600 10 / #600 Line pressure 53 barg 56 barg 4.8 barg 53 barg 4.8 barg Pressure leak rate 2.9 bar/min 1.8 bar/min 1.1 bar/min 2.0 bar/min 1.6 bar/min Type of valve Welded valve Flanged valve Flanged valve Flanged valve Flanged valve

The goal of the operation is to change the five mentioned valves in order to reset the Pressure Reduction Station to steady operation conditions, and to allow the maintenance tasks to be performed before a critical flaw of any of the valves occurs. The replacement of the five valves must be executed without affecting the NGL flow due to the pipeline transportation system conditions. It is important to remark the remote location of the Station placed at 13400 AMSL, and no existence of population close by for medical attention, so we had to take measures to assure good health of the personal in order to maintain good performance with no incident during works. Considering that for filters or control valves maintenance we had to shut down the station, drain the NGL with the consequent cost of the shut down, personal involve in the activates, risk involve in the drain process even more when dealing with NGL. Due to these consideration we had two options to change the valves with flaws: One was shut down the station for 18 hr which is the time involve to do the whole work, with the consequence NGL volume not transported; and the other option was to built a bypass with as a new PRS in order to dont affect the NGL transportation. The objective was achieved by constructing and installing a parallel temporary pressure regulating bypass which included welding labors, hydraulic test of piping, valves and accessories, and the main part of the operation was the use of the hot tapping, line stopping and plugging methodology; in order to avoid the interruption of the NGL flow.

2. Methods
The work methodology was the one described lines above, the sequence of the job and all the parameters taken into consideration were the following: 2

Rio Oil & Gas Expo and Conference 2012 2.1. Construction of the bypass. The construction of the bypass was built as shown in figure 2.

Figure 2. Temporary 8 By-pass Top activity due to the location of the station which was 3 hr away from the closest town, with steep slopes to access the station, and deal with the daily change of altitude for the personnel from 9000 ft AMSL to 13400 ft AMSL, so we had to consider back up people for strategic works in case the personnel feel seek. The bypass was build in order to have similar configuration as the original, with two brand of regulation, in case the dirt inside the new bypass obstruct one of the filter so we have the option to clean it without affecting the transport. The bypass was designed in such a way that we only need one hour of shut down the station to put in service the new bypass, to set up the control logic of the station so the system maintain working remotely by the main control room in Lima (300 km away), move all connections of instrumentation to the new station so the logic of control keep the same, and finally to align the stop-line equipment to isolate the station to change the valves. 2.1. Hot tapping installation The process that let the system no to shut down was made by hot tapping machines, so we made four hot-tap, one 14 and one 2 on the upstream side, and one 10 and one 2 on the downstream side, the two inch was used to filled and equalized with NGL the bypass. The hot tapping machine used were: Flowserve IP 508 S600, Flowserve IP 100 S600, Flowserve line Stop S600, Flowserve power unit, TDW power unit.

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Figure 3. Hot tapping works

Once the hot tap was made, the stopline machine was installed in order to connect to the rest of bypass and isolate the station for draining process.

Figure 4. Line Stopping configuration

2.1. N2 sweep and filling of the bypass The bypass was swept with nitrogen, in order to expel all the air by the 2 derivations. Once we reached 0 in the monitoring of explosive mix, the 2 valves were closed. The pneumatic and electrical systems of the 8 pressure regulating valves were verified to function properly; this was carried out in vacuum. After the mentioned tasks, the bypass was filled with NGL, on the low side so as not to create and produce a transient flow. This task is performed with the two control valves open to 50% until the other side of the bypass for the traces NGL mix. Then the 8 bypass was pressurized to line pressure. 2.2. 8 Bypass habilitation Once the 8 by-pass is at line pressure, the transportation of NGL was shut down to work in control logic implementation of the protection for the station, electrical and process adequacy of controllers and wiring to the control valves associated with the bypass. The pneumatic and electrical systems of the bypass control valve should be checked. Following this, it will verify the operability of these valves by opening and closing rates (0%, 25%, 50%, 100%) through the commands sent by the SCADA. After all this the two sides of the bypass must be al line pressure.

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Figure 5. 8 Temporary Bypass Regulating Valves 2.3. Depressurization and Draining Station (not pumping stop) The NGL pumping was restarted with the required flow confirming the operation of control valves. Once checked the correct operation of the bypass, the tasks of depressurization and drain of the PRS started. The characteristics of the fluid are as show in the following table.

Table2. NGL Properties. NGL COMPOSITION Compound Molar Fraction N2 0.0000 CO2 0.0000 H20 0.0000 Metano 0.0000 Ethano 0.0099 Propano 0.4108 i-Butano 0.0686 n-Butano 0.1327 i-Pentano 0.0015 n-Pentano 0.0497 n-Hexano 0.0486 Benceno 0.0738 n-Heptano 0.0022 n-Octano 0.0506 n-Nonano 0.0560 n-Decano 0.0317 n-Undecano 0.0204 Dodecano y superiores 0.0123 General Properties Vapor pressure Vapor pressure Density at 10.0C at 37.8C 15 C y 101.325 Kpa Units bara bara Kg/m3 Value 2.1 5.2 633

Rio Oil & Gas Expo and Conference 2012 The following step is to start the work in the PRS with the installation of shock tanks, flares, transfer external tanks, containment pools, monitoring equipment for explosive mixture and the demarcation of work area and safety zone. The station should be conditioned for drainage, ensuring the correct positions in the block valves. The draining of the pressure regulating station started only when we were sure that the 8 bypass was operating. The PRS was depressurized with two flares and constantly monitoring the vapors and liquids levels. The distribution of the flares was as follows: The lowest level of the land was located at the point of the 14 split tee upstream-. The highest level of the land was located at the point of the 10 Split Tee located. In addition to this, we had pneumatic pumps emergency teams, 2 hoses and a low pressure compressor 100 CFM. During the process we had personnel monitoring the area of the tanks and delimitate it in order to avoid any hot spot that could cause fire. It was important to realize monitoring temperature in the pipeline ant the stop line plug, because presence of differential temperature or freezing of these area represent that the line stop is not making a good seal. The drain was completed when the final pressure was 0 barg, free of NGL vapors.

Figure 6. Shock tank and flare facilities 2.3. Valves replacement The job comprised the replacement of the 4 valves of the regulating skid and the main block valve of the station. The 10 block valves of the skid were retired with 04 fixed 2 tn hoist frames at the base of the skid gear.

Figure 7. Hydraulic test of the block ball valves The sequence was the following: Removing of the valve actuators. Monitoring of explosive mixture Field staff closed the valve to gas supply actuator and disconnect the connection to the actuator. Tag and disconnect the wiring from the valves for all signals to the valve are deenergized. 6

Rio Oil & Gas Expo and Conference 2012 Label and remove the wiring of the valve actuator. Proceed to remove the actuator.

2.4. Dismantling of existing valves and installation of new valves. Remove of flanges and remove the existing valves (the ones with the seal flaws). Mounting of the new valves using the fixed hoists. Then the installation of the new valve actuators and the check of all the instrumentation systems (pneumatic and electric)

Figure 8. Mounting of new flanged valves and welded valve.

2.5. Pressurization and standardization of station Prior to this activity, all the valves were replaced and the seals of each one were checked: hydraulic tests and NDT were performed. In coordination with the operation, we proceeded to sweep the whole station with nitrogen until the normal working pressure of the station (7 bar. approximately in the low pressure side) with control valves 50% open. This was done slowly so as not to create transitory flow. The final step was checking for losses in all the flanges and connections intervened. 2.6. Standardization of Station (pumping stop) The final step was to fill the NGL station with liquids again, with the porpoise to start all the transportation for the regular channel again. There was a short shut down of the station during the change of the Control logic. All the process was using line stopping machines to direct the flow for the bypass or the station.

3. Results
The importance of the activity was showed by the results and their significance to the operation of the pipeline transportation system. The replacement of five block valves was met without interruption of the hydrocarbons flow, and resetting the pressure reduction station to steady operating conditions. The NGL daily program flow was met, so both the production and processing plants were supplied with the daily transportation rates in standard conditions, and in accordance with the requirements of the plant operators. All the contracts involving economic issues were respected avoiding penalties in terms of money.

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Figure 9.- Replaced Valves in the Pressure Regulating Bridge

3. Conclusions
Technical: Due to the altitude during welding process it is important to set up in probes the best adjustment of the welding machine, in our case we had to remove restrictions and set the gas exhaust of the generators to get good performance for the welding process to minimize defects on welds. Technical: Monitoring of the temperature of the pipeline in the line stopping plug point in the line very is important to be done to assure good performance of sealing. Technical: When building by-pass it is important to consider a filtering system, with block valves, because during construction of bypass you can control any dirty that could remain in bypass during construction and affect the stop line machine, even having a wide mesh it could get restricted. Safety: Its important to be clear with the people to be honest whenever they get seek due to the altitude, because seek people could cause incidents affecting the rest of the team. Social: There are small communities that have Vicuas all along the access road, so we have developed a social plan to maintain good relationships with de community, and have them as a partner in the process, hiring local people as part of the strategy. General: It is important to highlight that the work involves authorizations, so fluid communication between areas was important to get success in the whole work performed at the station.

Figure 10. Area involve in the charge of valves at PRS #1. 8

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4. Acknowledgements
The entire work was supported by the operating company of the Pipeline Transportation System, Compaia Operadora de Gas del Amazonas -COGA-.

8. References
The Handbook of Valve Lubrication and Maintenance, Copyright Sealweld Corporation, 2004. PHILIP L. SKOUSEN, Valve Hand Book, Mc Graw Hill, 1998. Piline Rules of Thumb Hand Book, E.W. McAllister Editor, 2002.