10 years ahead

Between June 2017 and March 2019 the Hengli Group con­structed an in­te­grated refining and chemical complex in the Chinese harbor town Dalian where 20 million tons of crude oil are processed every year. The gigantic project was planned in com­pli­ance with highest safety and en­vi­ron­men­tal stan­dards. EagleBurgmann advised the company con­cern­ing the se­lec­tion of me­chan­i­cal seals and supply systems for the whole plant and supplied more than 95 % of the com­po­nents in use. The in­no­v­a­tive LY9 product line which was de­vel­oped specif­i­cally ac­cord­ing to the strict re­quire­ments of API 682 4th edition as well as a ded­i­cated on-site service center guar­an­tee a trou­ble-free op­er­a­tion for the customer.

Hengli was one of the first pri­vately owned en­ter­prises in China which was granted a refining license. With high stan­dards for planning, con­struc­tion, com­mis­sion­ing and main­te­nance, the company adheres to the ideology of “moving ten years ahead”. At the same time, the con­struc­tion of the gigantic complex was per­formed with record speed. The experts at EagleBurgmann thus had to fulfil the highest quality stan­dards while pro­vid­ing the right so­lu­tions very quickly. A demand which can only be ac­com­plished through a very direct and smooth com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the customer.

A seven-mem­ber team was in charge on the customer premise in China. “Before the frame agree­ment was signed we gave a lot of advice to the customer about how to choose the right seals and supply systems for the dif­fer­ent units. Es­pe­cially for chal­leng­ing con­di­tions like extreme tem­per­a­tures or high pressure”, re­mem­bers Rocky Hu, sales manager of North area at EagleBurgmann in China. “During the whole project phase we drove the 140 km from our de­pen­dence in Dalian to the head­quar­ter of Hengli Petro­chem­i­cal at Liaodong bay two to three times a week.” The high com­mit­ment as well as the tech­ni­cal knowl­edge of the local team con­vinced the customer to rely on EagleBurgmann as the main supplier for the equip­ment of the refinery. In total, 4,151 seals and 4,907 supply systems were de­liv­ered to Dalian – the biggest project in the history of EagleBurgmann so far.

While the direct contact persons in China ensured a high response speed and maximum customer ori­en­ta­tion, the Hengli Group also ben­e­fited from the global network of EagleBurgmann. In the EagleBurgmann head­quar­ter in Wol­frat­shausen, Germany, the ded­i­cated unit “In­ter­na­tional Projects” is re­spon­si­ble for large-scale projects like the one in Dalian, which require that hundreds to thou­sands of dif­fer­ent products have to be designed si­mul­ta­ne­ously. This team, con­sist­ing of en­gi­neers and project managers, verifies product drawings, customer re­quire­ments and spec­i­fi­ca­tions. It also prepares offers and co­or­di­nates the delivery of the finished products. With this unit EagleBurgmann guar­an­tees that a direct contact person in the head­quar­ter is always at the customer’s disposal. Col­lab­o­ra­tion and co­or­di­na­tion with ad­di­tional stake­hold­ers is fa­cil­i­tated sig­nif­i­cantly through the central com­mu­ni­ca­tion hub.

“The customer used a lot of imported products like pumps and ag­i­ta­tors as well as spe­cial­ized devices and decided that all imported products should be equipped with imported me­chan­i­cal seals. For locally produced equip­ment, locally produced me­chan­i­cal seals had to be used. Good com­mu­ni­ca­tion was thus a key success factor. “We con­stantly rec­on­ciled our work with dif­fer­ent OEMs through weekly meetings”, explains Hu. 

To comply with the company’s policy con­cern­ing safety and re­li­a­bil­ity, EagleBurgmann rec­om­mended seals which meet the re­quire­ments of the de­mand­ing API 682 standard. The EagleBurgmann port­fo­lio contains a wide range of com­po­nents which comply with the newest edition of the guide­lines for seals and supply systems for pumps in the oil and gas sector. Hengli thus was able to purchase all required products from a single source. The experts of EagleBurgmann then cus­tomized them for the dif­fer­ent ap­pli­ca­tions. Adap­tions included among other things the choice of dif­fer­ent ma­te­ri­als. Ap­pli­ca­tions with ex­tremely high or low tem­per­a­tures were covered by the in­no­v­a­tive LY9 product line which was de­vel­oped in close col­lab­o­ra­tion by experts of EagleBurgmann from Germany and Japan. “With the LY9 we’ve put a new gen­er­a­tion of metal bellow seals on the market which has been specif­i­cally geared to the re­quire­ments of the API 682 4th edition”, explains Jan König, product manager at EagleBurgmann. With the se­lec­tion of a special material as well as an op­ti­mized design and man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nique, a very high ro­bust­ness was ac­com­plished.

“The dis­tinc­tive feature of the LY9 are the lamellas of the metal bellow”, König elab­o­rates. “They have a special in­no­v­a­tive shape and they are produced of inconel, a very strong material. Fur­ther­more, the welding points are spe­cial­ized for the material and the shape to reduce the forces inside the material which are caused by the constant movement of the bellow. Due to these factors the seal is very durable and the meantime between failure (MTBF) is pro­longed.” The special design of the LY9 is also an example of how EagleBurgmann creates a higher added value for the customer through stan­dard­iza­tion. “The same metal bellow unit can be used for all seal arrange­ments, whether it’s single, tandem or face-to-face. Thereby, stock-keep­ing is fa­cil­i­tated and the end user saves costs through the whole life cycle of the seals”, König explains. 

Advantages of the LY9 product line

• Suitable for higher speeds
• Good setting and running behaviour at non-circular or misalignment shafts or vibrations
• Low heat generation and power consumption due to narrow seal face width
• Also available in double ply design
• Suited for applications with extreme high and low temperatures
• Absence of dynamic O-Ring eleminates/reduces seal face hang-up
• Bellows design minimizes variation in face load due to shaft expansion or face wear
• Resistant to abrasive particles in the medium, no shaft or sleeve fretting

API 682 4th edition

Since its in­tro­duc­tion in 1994, API 682 has become the pi­o­neer­ing standard which sets the global tone for the pro­cure­ment and op­er­a­tion of seal and supply systems for cen­trifu­gal pumps in the oil and gas sector as well as in (petro)chem­istry. API 682 is a ”living“ standard which directly in­cor­po­rates diverse prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence in its regular updates. API is often con­sid­ered a synonym for safety and re­li­a­bil­ity all around the globe. The seals must be tested using five dif­fer­ent media and clearly defined op­er­at­ing con­di­tions which are rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the oil and gas industry. The required time per test and seal type can take up to 200 hours. The ob­jec­tive of API 682 is con­tin­u­ous op­er­a­tion of at least three years or 25,000 op­er­at­ing hours. 

EagleBurgmann is part of the API 682 Task Force and has been con­tribut­ing actively to the de­vel­op­ment of API spec­i­fi­ca­tions for more than 20 years. 

The delivery of the com­po­nents did only set the starting point for a close business re­la­tion­ship between EagleBurgmann and the Hengli Group. To ensure a trou­ble-free op­er­a­tion of the seals im­ple­mented at the refinery at any time, EagleBurgmann runs an on-site service center with a size of 240 square meters in Dalian. “A four-mem­ber team works in the service center and is avail­able 24/7. Whenever problems with the me­chan­i­cal seals occur – the ones produced by EagleBurgmann as well as some other brands – they are brought there, dis­as­sem­bled, cleaned, repaired, quality tested and sent back to the customer. Ad­di­tion­ally, we assist the customer when, for example, a pump fails. We analyze the sit­u­a­tion and try to provide a solution”, Hu states.

We are very sat­is­fied with the col­lab­o­ra­tion. While planning our ethylene cracking unit, which was put into op­er­a­tion in February 2020, we quickly decided to mainly use seal com­po­nents produced by EagleBurgmann”, Mr. Wu Yanzhi, pro­cure­ment director at Hengli Petro­chem­i­cal, declares.

While Chinese brands like Huawei, Alibaba or Lenovo are gen­er­ally known by everyone, the Hengli Group will probably only ring a bell for insiders of the capital market. The company has been ranking within the “Fortune Global 500”, the 500 high­est-gross­ing en­ter­prises of the world, for four years now. And it is con­stantly working its way upwards – from position 268 in 2017 to position 107 in the year 2020. Hengli was founded in the year 1994 as a small textile company with no more than 27 em­ploy­ees and has since grad­u­ally expanded its com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ties to the upstream supply chain. With the start-up of the refinery, Hengli com­pleted the “crude oil to textile fabric” vertical value chain ex­pan­sion. Poly­esters, chemical fibers and textiles produced by the company can be found in numerous products which are used in daily life – from tents to curtains and fake fur right up to raw ma­te­ri­als for bridge con­struc­tion.