Leading the pack

State's biggest project facilitates ExxonMobil compliance

By Sam Barnes

When ExxonMobil Site Execution Leader Raymond Fugler evaluated the refinery's effort to desulfurize its gasoline early in the design phase, his biggest concern was a heavy lift that wouldn't occur for more than a year.

Members of the construction team were brought into the development phase of the Baton Rouge project in 2001 to create construction efficiencies, and foresaw the lifting of the 500-ton T800 process vessel as the project's biggest logistical test.

"We performed a lot of heavy-lift, heavy-haul planning and the T800 was our primary concern," Fugler said. "We had to find a way to get the 500-ton vessel to the jobsite in the middle of an existing refinery with low pipe racks and numerous obstructions. That was the critical issue from the beginning."

The vessel is a primary component within ExxonMobil's $280 million low sulfur mogas (clean gasoline) project, which will enable the plant to produce low-sulfur gasoline by 2004, as mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Making a path for the vessel proved a formidable task.

"To get the vessel underneath piperacks we had to dig an 18-in.-deep, 400-ft.-long trench right down the middle of the road," Mike Reed, Fluor Daniel site manager, explained. "That way we could successfully drive the vessel in a horizontal position beneath the racks." Fluor subcontractors J.E. Merit Constructors and Deep South Crane & Rigging removed obstructions and some facilities to "clear the path," including a storage yard and signage.

"There were also a few underground sewers and other utilities that were re-routed because they couldn't hold up under the weight of the vessel," he said.

According to Reed, the lift of the T800 was actually the final stage in the vessel's long journey, which began with its manufacture last year. The 178-ft.-tall vessel was transported by ocean-going vessel to a New Orleans docking facility, then barged by Deep South to a dock off the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge.
Jason Ribes, project manager with Deep South Crane & Rigging, Baton Rouge, said a similar procedure was followed for each of his company's major lifts, but that the T800 was by far the most difficult.

"When we unloaded it, we put the vessel on stands to allow our transporter trailers to get beneath it. The transporter then hydraulically jacked itself up by about 6 in. or so and picked up the load," Ribes said. The 40-axle transporter drove the vessel to the ExxonMobil site 3 mi. away.

"We had to remove some traffic lights, so the city required we transport the vessel on the weekend," Ribes said.

Once the vessel had maneuvered through the existing plant and arrived at the jobsite, it was placed in an area where it could be "dressed out" with platforms and insulation during a month-long process.

Although T800 was the heaviest of the vessels to be lifted, 10 other heavy lifts will be required before the project's end in November, four of which weigh more than 200 tons (most notably some 225-ton reactors). Deep South is performing all the heavy lifts, using a 1,500-ton capacity crane and a 750-ton tailing rig.

According to ExxonMobil's Wayne Purdom, site startup manager, the project's ultimate purpose is to enable the Baton Rouge plant to begin producing gasoline with reduced sulfur (less than 30 parts per million) by Jan. 1, 2004.

"The project maintains the refinery's ability to produce gasoline. Without this project, there would be an approximate 30 percent reduction in the amount of gasoline the plant could produce," Purdom said. The project uses SCANfining technology developed by ExxonMobil engineers in Baton Rouge, which reduces sulfur content in gasoline while maintaining octane level. This proprietary technology has been sold to other refining companies as part of efforts to reduce sulfur in their own fuels.

The design portion of the Engineer/Procure/Construction contract began in 2001 (performed by Fluor engineers in Houston and New Delhi, India), and construction broke ground at the site in June 2002. Five months of demolition had already been performed by ExxonMobil's continuing service contractors (Harmony, IMR, Basic, Brand & ISC), allowing Cajun Constructors Inc., Baton Rouge, to immediately begin constructing more than 600 drilled piers ranging from 24 to 36 in. dia. and averaging 18 ft. in depth.

Weather related obstacles were encountered during the foundation phase, as two hurricanes shut the jobsite down for weeks, requiring that the subcontractors work "select overtime" to maintain the schedule.

According to Reed, the desulfurization project is not confined to just one area within the massive plant, but instead is spread across several locations, including a grassroots plant area, a process area, a network of interconnecting piperacks, a new flare and a new caustic area, and two existing naphtha hydrofiners.

"As part of the demolition phase, the contractor had basically 'bathtubbed' the grassroots area by leaving a 4-ft.-deep hole," Fugler explained. "This allowed us to put in underground piping and utilities, then backfill as we moved up with the plant. It basically eliminated a lot of excavation that we would've had to do otherwise."

Approximately 900 cu. yds. of concrete were placed for the drilled shafts and for several large mat pours necessary to support the vessels.

"The largest foundation was built for the T800 vessel. That's the big boy. It reaches about 4 ft. in depth," Reed said. Upon project completion, approximately 8,300 cu. yds. of concrete will have been supplied by Dolese Concrete, Baton Rouge, with the civil work being performed by Boh Bros. Construction LLC.

The foundations will eventually support more than 130 pieces of equipment interspersed throughout the multi-faceted jobsite, consisting of exchangers, pumps, drums and reactors in a variety of sizes and shapes, as well as a three-cell cooling tower.
Structural steel is being used heavily during construction, with about 2,100 tons of steel being erected by Performance Contractors, Baton Rouge.

"We've got a mixture of galvanized and fireproofed steel, but we didn't have any intricate type material. It's pretty vanilla stuff," Reed said.

Pipe installation comprises another significant portion of the project, with more than 175,000 linear ft. of carbon, stainless steel and chrome piping reaching up to 36 in. dia. installed by Performance crews.

In another example of constructability at the site, a new electrical substation is being delivered in four separate modules, then "simply set on top of its foundation and bolted together."

The package substation "took all of the manhours off the site," Reed said. MMR Constructors Inc., Baton Rouge, is performing the electrical and instrumentation installation within the control building, as well as throughout the remainder of the plant.

According to ExxonMobil's Purdom, once the project is completed in November, the refinery owner will be responsible for the startup of the facility. Throughout the project, some turnarounds have been necessary to tie in new piping with existing equipment.

At the peak of construction, about 900 workers - Fluor contractors and ExxonMobil subcontractors - will be working at the site, expected by late Spring.

More than halfway through and no OSHA incidents.

Now that the project is well over halfway complete - about 1,100,000 of a total 2.1 million manhours - a lack of OSHA-recordable incidents or injuries has the construction team optimistic that it could go the distance.

"We have to say that what we're doing here is extraordinary by any jobsite's standards," noted Fugler. "Our goal is that nobody gets hurt. That is the highest standard and we will not be satisfied with less."
Reaching the zero-incidents milestone has not come easy, with Fluor and all subcontract companies making a concerted effort at the project's outset to align with ExxonMobil's safety philosophy.

"I think the biggest thing is the presence of management in the field every day," Purdom said. "We've developed a culture with the craftspeople here - the safety culture is part of our everyday business."An awards program is used in the field to reward employees for safe practices "on the spot." Employee meetings, which allow employees to talk about issues that might compromise the safety of the jobsite, complement this proactive approach.

Ninety-five percent of the subcontractors at the site are based in Louisiana.