Oilfield & Energies

Chemoxy invests in distillation capacity

Chemoxy has successfully completed the upgrade of one of its busiest plants on the Middlesbrough Site (in the UK). Plant 6.1 provides the platform for a number of key custom manufacturing processes including desalination, solvent recovery, aqueous stream treatment and esterification. As 2017 unfolded Chemoxy saw the demand for these processes increase across the board and made the decision with parent company, Novacap Group, to invest in debottlenecking of this very busy unit.

The challenge was to deliver enhanced capability quickly with minimum interruption to on-going operations. Engineers on site studied the possible plant bottlenecks and in two months designed, procured and installed an upgraded distillation column and vapour main to plant 6.1.

The replacement and upgrade of the column went ahead on schedule over Christmas and New Year and the plant was successfully recommissioned in January. Since the turn of the year, the enhanced M6.1, driven by an ambitious operations team, has successfully processed many thousands of additional tonnes of product for our customers.

Chemoxy Middlesbrough is now looking forward to our next investment and work has begun to recommission unit 1.2 which has been mothballed since 2008. This unit will allow Chemoxy to offer to the market additional solvent recovery capacity with stainless product storage on a plant with a 22 theoretical plate, 0.75m column with heat up to 180oC.