With an unreliable pump seal, major South African refinery turned to AESSEAL® for assistance.
A potash pump fitted with a competitor’s component seal on API Plan 32 using condensate as a flush, had a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of just 7 months. It was costing more than 1 million Rand per year to repair the seal (excluding the cost of condensate lost to the process). Upon investigation by AESSEAL® it was discovered that due to the throttle bush clearance, there was insufficient seal chamber pressure. This was causing the seal to run dry, damaging the o rings and therefore leading to leakage.
AESSEAL® replaced the component seal with a CAPI A TXS cartridge seal in December 2014. The new seal has been in operation for more than 29 months without failure. Cost savings in the first 12 months of operation were 509,000 Rand, to date (May 2017) more than 1.5 million Rand has been saved. As a result of this success, two additional pumps have also been upgraded.
“The new seals are very user friendly and we already see a cleaner downstream product due to elimination of condensate contamination from the external flush. We have also seen a dramatic drop in the condensate usage.”
Mechanical Rotating Equipment Section Leader
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