Babcock Wanson heaters are the cost-effective choice for Eastham Refinery

Babcock Wanson has supplied two high efficiency EPC 2500ES Thermal Fluid Heaters, with advanced control systems incorporating O2 and CO trim to further improve efficiency, to Eastham Refinery Limited to heat the bitumen product storage tanks. The temperature of the storage tanks needs to be sufficiently high to ensure that the bitumen product can still be pumped when it reaches the customer. If the bitumen temperature drops too low it becomes difficult to pump. An accurate and reliable heat source is therefore essential.

Douglas Watt, Senior Process Engineer and the Project Manager, explains the company’s decision: “ERL considered converting to gas firing on the original heaters. This would have required significant investment to update the equipment and to bring the control/instrumentation up to modern standards. A packaged heater solution was more cost effective.”

Eastham Refinery Limited has been pleased with the results: “The heaters have met our expectation and are straightforward to operate. They have resulted in a significant reduction in fuel cost over our previous oil fired heaters” states Douglas. The service they have received from Babcock Wanson has also been positive: “The service has been good; the startup and commissioning engineer was very professional.”