Cleaning Bitumen Wagons
Our tank cleaning teams have been busy recently with the cleaning, inspection, testing and maintenance of two dozen rail tank wagons that were being cleaned as part of a conversion from carrying Bitumen to gas oil.
This project was invovled many complex issues and there are only two effective approaches:
Heat the Bitumen to 140 degrees to liquify it and enable transferrable as a liquid using specialsit vacuum tankers.
Chill the Bitumen to -5 degrees to harden it so that it can be chipped out manually using cold chisels.
As you can imagine these cleaning process were complicated and time consuming involving a number of different hazards and risks for our teams to overcome.
Once our cleaning systems were set in place our teams began rolling the wagons through, completing on average one wagon every three days.
The hardest part was removing the Bitumen from around the internal coils used to heat the wagons to maintain a liquidfied state when being transported.
Once all were cleaned these internal coils were pressure tested and any damage to the coils was identified so that repairs could be made to them before going into service again.
This project brought up many complex issues, as it was a project unlike any LCM had undertaken before, but using our years of experience and knowledge in tank cleaning and environmental impact of such projects LCM overcome all obstacles and completed the project on time and to specification.
If you have any tank cleaning enquiries or would like more information please contact us click here or visit out tank cleaning page.
LCMs ability to carry out complex projects is renowned throughout the Petroleum Industry and our experience and expetertise is second to none.
Specialists units were used to cool the remaining Bitchumen making it easier to remove
Site set up
Setting up site with waste shutes and safety scaffolding
Bitumen at the base of the wagon