Cryogenic Insulation for Offshore Platform

Summary and Scope

A client had designed a state of the art Condensate Recovery System (CRS) to capture hydrocarbons from gas streams that would otherwise have been flared on offshore platforms, using an innovative series of cryogenic turbo-expanders, heat exchangers and columns. The CRS system would be installed on brownfield platforms which meant there would be weight and space limitations, so any new equipment to be installed had to minimise its space and weight impact. After a thorough review of the various insulation systems available in the market, the client chose Cryogel Z as their material of choice and KLAY EnerSol as their installation partner.

Insulation System Design – Heat gain calculation, Thickness calculation
Materials Off - Take Calculations
Supply of Cryogel Z
Installation of System
Off-Shore Supervisory Works

How KLAY Enersol's Expertise Helped?

KLAY EnerSol has in-house capability for calculating heat and insulation requirements and was able to promptly respond to the client requests for changes on the base design throughout the project.

We also proposed the use of Aspen Aerogels’ Cryogel Z for the following reasons:

Lowest Thermal Conductivity – Allows for almost 40% less volume on the overall size of the built system
Light weight –Less insulation material required resulted in a lower weight loading. But more importantly, because of the compact size, less steelwork was required for the piping connecting the various pieces of equipment significantly reducing the weight of the final system
Flexible and robust – The project was of a fast track nature and there were significant changes to the piping and layout even after the job was awarded. Because Cryogel-Z is supplied in roll form, the precise dimensions and lengths of the equipment that required insulation was not required to pre-order the material (vs other pre-formed insulation materials such as Cellular Glass or PIR) giving tremendous amount of flexibility to the project without regret costs or wastage.
Pre-Insulation capable – Due to the fast track nature of these projects, significant portions of piping and equipment could be pre-insulated before being fitted onto the skid, saving valuable time and costly offshore manhours.

Challenges

As the CRS system was going to be installed on an off-shore platform there was severe space and weight limitations. The design was also undergoing optimization in parallel to the construction and was being fast tracked, so the client needed a fast yet flexible system that could cater to their project pace.

Conclusion

The project was completed as per client’s requirements and well within the timing expectations. Because a significant portion of the work was pre-insulated, a significant reduction in completion time was achieved and minimum amount of rectification works was required after the system was installed offshore. To date, 3 complete systems have been installed using Cryogel Z and is the material of choice for future installations as well.