Battery 3 Recovery Works
Otto Simon Ltd • April 4, 2016
Otto Simon is currently delivering a ‘Hot Idling and Recovery’ Project on ACO Battery 3
The project is due for completion in the summer of 2016 and involves a complex scope of work that includes:
- Replacing all ascension pipes and Pullman valves
- Replacing both north and south flare stacks
- Replacing charge holes
- Replacing door frames and tie-bars
- Replacing a proportion of buckstays
- Quoin end repairs
- Essential maintenance repairs (including replacement of flues and silica welding of all joints and cracks
- Replacing service pipework
- Replacing the walkway above the collecting main
- Electrical and control infrastructure improvements
The project faces the challenge of constantly balancing the needs of pushing coke, continuing the recovery work on battery 3 and managing interfaces between batteries 1, 2, and 4. Paul Hudson, Project Engineer Coke Making Recovery, told InSite Magazine about the complexity of the project: “We need to keep the ovens to temperature throughout the entire project to protect the oven brickwork.” Despite the fact that the battery was ‘hot idled’ from the second week in December 2015 to ensure that it had cooled down sufficiently to start work in the new year, the battery remains a very high temperature intensive environment for Otto Simon’s specialist maintenance engineers to work in.
OSL is continually improving our systems of working and implementing lessons learned throughout the project. Steve Potter, Otto Simon’s Site Manager said that although Otto Simon has encountered some ‘obstacles’ in the project, none have been insurmountable and that with the cooperation of the shift teams, we have managed to achieve more than we had planned. “I’d like to thank the ACO project team who continue to assist where needed in keeping the project moving and helping with resource when possible,” he added.
Stuart Cadzow, Manager of Health, Safety & Environment told InSite Magazine: “I was encouraged by the thought and energy that has gone into this project by the ACO team and Otto Simon Ltd to develop the safe systems of control necessary for a task of this scale and complexity.
All 33 ovens are due to be delivered back to service on schedule.
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