Author of the article: Tyler Kula
A roughly 50-year-old flare stack at Shell’s Corunna chemical plant is being replaced.
The more than 12-tonne, 54-metre-long replacement, to be used for venting at the isopropyl alcohol manufacturing plant, was trucked in this week, said Shell’s Olwen Gover.
“It arrived at site right around midnight” May 11, she said.
The flare stack, made in Ingersoll and shipped on a 55-metre trailer via 400-series highways and Sarnia-Lambton’s oversized load corridor, replaces a flare stack built in the 1970s, when the chemical plant opened, she said.
The new one will be installed and the old one demolished during a weeks-long turnaround at the plant planned for September, Gover said.
“We do flare maintenance as part of each turnaround event and our last inspection on the chem plant flare stack indicated it was approaching end of life,” she said by email. “We do frequent inspections and maintenance to ensure the continued reliability and safety of our equipment.”
Plans are to transition to a six-year cycle for turnarounds, to have less impact, she said, “but of course it’s based on thorough maintenance plans and inspections to ensure the continued reliability and safety of the site.”
The cost of this September’s turnaround isn’t being made public, she said.
Another large piece of equipment — a nearly 195-tonne regenerator — is expected to arrive in late August. It will travel from Sarnia’s waterfront to the plant overnight, via the oversized load corridor, she said. “We normally do it at times when it’s not expected to impact on traffic.”
Mammoet trucked the flare stack and is also expected to move the regenerator, Gover said.
There are two flare stacks at the refinery and one at the chemical plant, she said.
