Suncor Energy Inc T.SU

Shutting down an FCCU regen section

[Oldnagger]

For those who may not be familiar , this is far from an easy procedure. The regen unit consists of a fluidized bed of very hot catalyst particles . The catalyst must be dumped via a standpipe thru which hot air is blown upwards. A slightly positive upflow of air must be maintained at all times during the dumping procedure. To do otherwise , risks having the regen catalyst slumping inside the reactor with the attendant catastrophic results (need to open up And clean out the reactor or even to replace it)
Yours truly had the rather dubious pleasure of standing at the base of a very hot stand pipe with the task of maintaining a constant air flow by means of a very large standpipe valve. For 36 hours ,I was left to accomplish the task in isolation with my only resource being 24 bottles of coke that had been left for me. The refinery was the Texaco refinery in Montreal and the date was long ago on  a very hot July first weekend
My overtime paycheck was fantastic yet I nearly died from dehydration. My boss was an utter idiot as all he could say was that he had forgotten about me. Yet somehow he knew to leave the 24 bottles of coke which clearly were nor enough !!

[Oldnagger]

As a denouement to this story, despite my desperate efforts to save a regen unit , the very next year the Texaco refinery and others were shutdown pemanently due to excessive taxation by the Quebec government . Unfortunately , our society has been cursed by a group of zealots who sow nothing less than disregard and despair !!  Now , at least they can pretend that there is some noble cause

[meritmat]

Typical Quebec.  A friend of mine was down there testing has wells.  Excellent wells.  Think I read that Quebec has 10% of the natural gas in Canada.   Goverment put a moratorium on drilling and development......Forced the company's to stop all exploration.... They can take that pos province into the river 

[mrbb]

quebec is doing what's good for quebec. Only the naive ones don't understand. Their coal, P&NG in the ground are their SPR at no cost storage. Why exploit them now when they can milk the transfer payment gift as long as possible?  Even saudi and russian finally realizing that. They rather cut production than ram up volumes to achieve the same revenue.  Their war against shale