L-40 revamps Marathon regenerator

Boilermakers work 80,000 man-hours with no recordables

WORKING FOR Construction Turnaround Services of Tulsa, Okla., members of Local 40 (Elizabethtown, Ky.) have completed a “head-off” plenum and cyclone rebuild at Marathon Petroleum’s Catlettsburg, Ky., oil refinery. Together with travelers from other area Boilermaker lodges, they worked 80,000 man-hours with no recordable accidents.

The job employed about 140 Boilermakers: 80 from Local 40, 40 from the National Transient Lodge, and the rest from Locals 30 (Greensboro, N.C.), 105 (Chillicothe, Ohio), 199 (Jacksonville, Fla.), 667 (Charleston, W.Va.), and 906 (Donora, Pa.). The regenerator is used to clean up spent clay catalyst. A catalyst is used during the refining process to separate out coke during a reaction that changes gas oils into more useful types of oil. The regenerator burns the coke from the catalyst so it may be reused.

The job began in April 2007 with the unloading and assembling of a Lampson 2,600-ton crane. The crane’s boom was 340-ft. long and was loaded with 5.2 million pounds of counterweight.

“The actual shutdown began on Sept. 5, 2007, and finished Oct. 31, 2007; however, we still had a small crew at the site as late as Jan. 25 dismantling and loading out the big crane,” reported L-40 ABM Michael Autry.

Some of the larger lifts at the job included removal of the regenerator head with the old plenum and cyclones that weighed 650 tons, and its replacement weighing 680 tons with rigging.

“I believe this shows the skills and dedication of Local 40 and NTL members who completed this work without a recordable injury,” reported L-40 BM-ST Ray Parrott, “especially since the work involved a lot of high and heavy rigging, plus working seven days a week for an extended period.”