Major Refinery Prevents Downtime and Improves Bottom Line by Monitoring Oil Viscosity

Machinery failures, downtime and maintenance labor costs can kill a refiner’s bottom line profits. A major US oil company with refinery installations in North and South America has installed several Cambridge Viscosity (USA) VISCOpro 1600 viscometers to monitor oil viscosity, providing engineers with real-time information on oil quality. The viscometers utilise Cambridge’s 392 process sensors and are Class 1 Div 1 Group B, C, and D certified.

Each viscometer is mounted on a skid where the refiner mixes gas and lube oil for a screw compressor. When the gas/oil mixture leaves the compressor, it is recycled. Three separation filters on the compressor skid remove 97-98% of the gas out of the oil. Over time, the remaining 2-3% of the gas can cause the lube oil to lose its lubricity or lubrication quantities, and as this happens, the viscosity of the oil drops. When the oil viscosity drops to a certain level, the oil must be changed to protect the equipment and keep process uptime on target.

“This precautionary maintenance operation saves thousands of dollars in machinery failures, downtime and maintenance labor costs for a refinery, which represents positive profits to their bottom line,” says Cambridge Viscosity President Robert Kasameyer.