Savings for Shell

Shell Lubricants' manufacturing plant at Stanlow uses compressed air in important stages of the production process. Engineers at the plant were concerned that compressors and dessicant dryers were being asked to operate beyond their service life and called in Thorite for advice.

Thorite's engineering design team carried out a power logging exercise to determine compressed air usage patterns. This indicated that the three existing compressors, each supported by a dessicant dryer, were operating far from efficiently.

Thorite's solution was to install an HPC DSD202SFC oil-flooded, variable speed compressor, powerful enough to run the main plant under all load demands, but supported by two of the original compressors for emergency backup. Thorite also installed an HPC Hybritec Dryer to replace three dessicant dryers. This has an intelligent control system that oversees both a refrigerant dryer and a dessicant dryer, neatly packaged on a compact skid mounting. It allows either the refrigerant or dessicant dryers to maintain a set dewpoint, giving minimal power consumption and high compressed air purity.

Thorite also installed a SAM4 controller with full visualisation.