“We felt it was quite successful to be able to empty those rail cars in the 40-45 degrees Celsius (104-113 degrees Fahrenheit) regions of Mexico in short order, while not sacrificing volume in the rail car.” “For us, we lean toward maximizing the compressor displacement, so that if we are going to be running that system, we’re going to have maximum effect on those vapors coming over,” he said. Higher temperatures create different challenges.įorchuk said compressors tend to overheat in certain propane transloading applications in a vapor recovery state.
#BUTANE TRANSLOADER FREE#
“Now, if the ambient temperature effects allowed free gas to come, we would use the compressor to assist that pumping system, and they would work in unison.” “What that allowed us to do is, throughout the temperature envelope of the day, on, say, very flat butane in a car with literally zero pressure on it, we would move that at the beginning of the transfer with the pump,” Forchuk said. Propane will have free gas available throughout the temperature envelope.īut transloading butane in cooler temperatures often presents a problem, with butane in near-freezing conditions providing no free gas, so Sky Eye combined a pumping system with a compressor. “The compressor uses it to feed the system, we generate the pressure differential and then we hydraulic that liquid over to the truck.” Varying conditions “Through the hydraulic method with LPG, the free vapor available is the drive gas. “Say you’ve got a truck under zero pressure and the rail car is being received with some pressure, and you’re going to try to move that liquid volume over to that truck with zero pressure on it,” Forchuk said. “We’ve used a combination of straight-up hydraulic … where you do have the interim bullets and the smaller compression to move that product to and from, and then you might be moving a liquid through the pumps to the trucks.”Īt another site, Sky Eye used a combination of manifest transloading, and permanent bullets and compression, with a liquid end for pumping to trucks.Ī hydraulic transfer method, which is relevant to fully independent situations, can draw on shared vapor capacity.
“Each client has different situations, whether it’s distances and locations of equipment, and what sort of technologies or solutions will suffice,” Forchuk said. “If the rail cars are stopping, we can bring in that infrastructure with power to perform these types of transfers,” Forchuk said.Īs businesses and their associated projects grow, the company can utilize bullet tanks to assist in transfers. In these situations, Sky Eye might deploy an intermediate component with generation, with the goal of moving product quickly.
#BUTANE TRANSLOADER PORTABLE#
In exploratory ventures, like moving product in emerging markets in Mexico, or in others where capital’s deployed to understand the business, portable hydraulic techniques are effective solutions. application, and an operation’s complexity. Sky Eye, which bills itself as a hydrocarbon transfer and measurements solutions specialist, uses different utility “drive” gasses, such as nitrogen and natural gas, to pressurize and sweep rail cars for liquid butane and propane, depending on capital cost vs. “In each scenario, whether we go from a brownfield facility to a new-venture rail spur that’s going to be there for six to 12 months, understanding the different mechanisms and properties of that fluid and how it wants to act, and the gasses, will start to guide us in what direction we go for a solution,” Forchuk said.įorchuk touched on approaches to transloading his company deploys, including using drive gasses, pumps and compressors, and the importance of engineering safety into transloaders, in the “Advancements in transloading LPG and butane” session at the International Liquid Terminal Association’s 38th Annual International Operating Conference & Trade Show in Houston, Texas.
The key, said John Forchuk, Sky Eye’s vice-president of business development, is to recognize the various challenges associated with moving LPG and butane from railcar to truck, including distance, weather and infrastructure, and then providing a versatile array of solutions to meet those challenges. SKY Eye Measurement, founded in 2005 in Acheson, Alberta, Canada, is growing into a leader in liquified petroleum gas (LPG) and butane transloading, building a successful business on the fundamentals of safety, performance and reliability.
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