Have you ever heard the saying “the early bird gets the worm”?
Of course you have—this expression is overly used to the point of cliche, but that’s in large part because of the truth it holds. Many people equate this saying to getting up early in the morning in an attempt to outwork and outperform your competition. There may be some truth to that. But, there are other applications as well.
For example, in oil & gas, petrochemical new construction and expansion projects, we see plants designed and engineered to amazing levels of precision and complexity. This is done to optimize efficiency, increase optimal production levels, make best use of available space and create safe environments for plant workers. Often times when we are brought in to execute the pre-commissioning cleaning for these projects, we find closed systems that offer little to no access for the cleaning work required. Whether it’s steam blows, air blows, chemical cleaning, AquaLazing or oil flushes — access points are mandatory for us to complete the work.
B&W’s team is unrivaled in our ability to effectively clean piping systems for any size or type of project. We bring the latest technology, proven methods and proprietary equipment to clean your systems to every possible cleanliness level imaginable. But, we can’t clean what we can’t reach. No one can.
So what happens in these situations?
Our engineering team designs a cleaning program by determining where to cut new access points into your newly constructed piping, giving our cleaning team the access they need to complete the cleaning. That costs time and money — a lot of it. We’ve seen projects where the lack of pre-engineering for necessary cleaning cost the project millions of dollars and weeks of delay. We’ve even seen a system design that made it impossible to clean the piping at all. Imagine how much money and time was required to re-design the system.
An EPC never wants to explain this problem to the owner of the plant.
What’s the solution? How do you keep this from happening?
There’s another lesser known proverb that says “It’s never too late to start early”. This particular expression rings especially true in regard to pre-engineering your new plant construction or expansion project for the cleaning phase.
At B&W we work on many of the world’s largest and most complex projects for EPC’s and owners who seek value from their pre-commissioning and commissioning cleaning partner. One such company, Shell, has seen first-hand the value of bringing our world-class engineering team into their projects as early as possible. Why? Because when you work with our engineers in the infancy of a project, you end up with plants designed and built with pre-commissioning cleaning in mind. The result translate into no delays and zero cost overruns resulting from additional construction changes for system cleaning.
Maybe your project is already underway. That’s okay, we can still help. It’s never too late to pre-engineer your systems for cleaning. Then next time, after you’ve worked with us on your current project, we can partner even earlier in the process to deliver even better results.