Total Blasting water jetting solutions critical for South African refinery shutdown
South Africa’s leading water jetting solutions provider, Total Blasting, has supplied its specialised high-pressure pumps and associated tooling for the cleaning of plant and equipment at Sasol’s Secunda refinery during a critical annual shutdown regarded as one of the biggest of its kind on the African continent.
The Sasol Secunda refinery shutdown is deemed one of the biggest of its nature in the world. The maiden shutdown was held in the early 80s and has been a prominent annual event ever since. This year’s annual planned shutdown took place in September over a 14-day period to facilitate routine cleaning, critical path maintenance and essential mechanical plant repairs.
Bearing in mind that Sasol contributes about 29% of the South African fuel pool, it is essential that non-production time of its refineries is kept to a possible minimum to ensure uninterrupted supply of fuel in the country. During the annual shutdown, any form of downtime due to faulty equipment is out of question, and it is through the commitment of all partners that Sasol can accomplish a successful shutdown.
With that in mind, a contractor commissioned to undertake the industrial cleaning of the Sasol Secunda refinery plant didn’t leave anything to chance when looking to rent high-pressure industrial cleaning pumps and associated tooling. Having previously engaged the services of Total Blasting or the supply the critical gear during the annual shutdown of the Chevron refinery in Cape Town earlier this year, the contractor once again entrusted South Africa’s leading water jetting solutions specialist to provide a reliable rental fleet.
Total Blasting supplied its 1 000 bar and 2 800 bar units with flow rates ranging from 60-120 litres/min and 19 litres/min, respectively. Bradley Storer, Director at Total Blasting, remarks, “As a provider of high-pressure cleaning solutions in an industry with a number of other vendors, it is the reliability of the company’s equipment that makes it the “first choice” option, especially in refinery shutdown applications where equipment needs to run without any breakdowns to ensure maximum uptime for the timely completion of the task at hand.”
“When supplying cleaning equipment for critical, often short shutdown windows, reliability is key to building solid partnerships for possible repeat work in future,” comments Storer, concluding “Total Blasting has built a reputation of supplying consistent and innovative high pressure washing solutions through its 30 years’ experience in providing equipment to planned shutdown work in petrochemicals facilities.”
Apart from the provision of world-class water jetting solutions through its representation of some leading names in the global water jetting industry, Total Blasting is well-positioned to offer its customers expert advice on all aspects related to surface preparation, particularly Ultra High Pressure water blasting services and solutions.
