Case Study: Leak Detection Survey Leads to Significant Savings

Opportunity

A careful examination of a facility’s compressed air system often reveals opportunities to reduce costs and environmental impact. Significant savings can be derived by diminishing the plant’s energy draw. As well, opportunities to lower operating, maintenance, and repair costs are frequently identified. Many industries have ignored these problems for years, citing cheap energy sources, but today, an understanding of total cost of ownership is imperative to saving money. For example, a single leak in a quarter-inch compressed air line can cost a facility anywhere from $2500 USD to more than $8000 USD per year¹, depending on pressure and energy costs.

When leaks and inefficient flow are accounted for, energy waste becomes staggering. Accepted industry estimates indicate the value of wasted energy due to poorly designed and maintained compressed air systems in North America could be as high as $3.2 billion USD annually.¹

Our customers, a natural gas processing plant, realized the value of revenue lost to compressed air leaks and saw Swagelok^® fluid system evaluation and advisory services as an opportunity for change. The consultation helped the customers better understand their options ahead of a large decision on capital outlay to improve the condition of their utility air system.

Challenges

Our customer is one of the largest natural gas processing plants in Alberta, Canada. Key operations include sour gas treating, co-stream processing, plus natural gas liquids extraction and fractionation.

The customer was troubled by frequent low-level alarms and a constant struggle to maintain air pressure at the point of use, particularly in those areas furthest from the compressor. Our initial meetings with the customer indicated the potential for leakage and inefficiencies throughout the plant’s utility air system. Swagelok’s field engineer noted two plausible causes:

• The plant was suffering from unrealized inefficiencies, such as leaks, artificial demand, or practices not aligned with industry standards; or
• Real plant demand had exceeded the capacity of the existing compressor

Faced with the critical decision of a large capital investment for an additional compressor package, our customer agreed to an evaluation of its utility air system.

Approach

Swagelok fluid system evaluation and advisory services deployed a team of four fluid system experts to conduct an eight-day compressed air leak-detection audit at our customer’s facility. Leveraging years of application experience and a suite of specialized, sensitive equipment, the team’s mission was to survey/test, identify, and tag all leak points throughout the facility’s utility and breathing air systems. At the conclusion of the audit, the team surveyed and tested over 12,000 tube fitting connections and more than 3,000 pipe fitting connections.

Results