Crude Railcar Flexibility

A refining company in the Southeast needed to upgrade an existing facility that had no unloading capacity for rail cars, leaving them unable to take advantage of crudes that are only available by rail. The original platforms and gangways were also in poor condition and needed to be replaced. C&I’s work involved process design, plant design, and mechanical, civil/structural, and electrical engineering expertise.

Our design placed the switch for the rail spur slightly outside their property, and allowed for two tracks instead of one, making it possible for the refinery to fit 21 cars in a tight space. We also built in the flexibility to offload crude oils that vary in gravity and viscosity: if heating is required to reduce the viscosity of the crude to 1,000 cp, the refinery can do so via a new steam-heated shell-and-tube exchanger, before pumping it using the existing pumps.