Lined Pipe in Lake Charles, LA

Southwest Louisiana packs more corrosive chemistry into a few miles of waterway than almost anywhere on the Gulf Coast: three refineries, chlor-alkali cell rooms, vinyl chloride plants, ethane crackers, a titanium dioxide plant, a refining-catalyst plant, and LNG terminals down the Calcasieu Ship Channel to Cameron. Marspec Technical Products fabricates the PTFE-, PVDF- and polypropylene-lined pipe spools and supplies the lined fittings and valves that carry the acid, caustic, brine and chlorine those plants run on. Call (251) 625-4949 with a line list or a problem line.

We are a Gulf Coast neighbor, shipping from Fairhope, Alabama, with more than half a century in plastic-lined piping. Send drawings or a parts list and contact us online for a quote.

Industry along the Calcasieu Ship Channel

The channel runs about 34 miles from the Port of Lake Charles city docks to the Gulf. The process plants sit on the upper reaches at Westlake, Sulphur and Lake Charles; the LNG terminals are downstream at Hackberry and Cameron.

Chlor-alkali, vinyls and chlorine derivatives

The former PPG complex at Lake Charles South makes chlorine and caustic soda. That chlorine goes into ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride monomer, into the chloride-process titanium dioxide plant at Westlake, into a pool-chemical plant making chlorinated isocyanurates, and into a hydrazine plant where hypochlorite reacts with ammonia. The media are the hardest on steel in the business: saturated and depleted brine, wet chlorine gas, 32 and 50 percent caustic, sodium hypochlorite, synthesis-grade hydrochloric acid and EDC. PTFE-lined pipe with PFA-lined plug, ball and diaphragm valves is the standard answer in cell rooms, bleach units and HCl absorbers, with diaphragm valves or ball valves with a vented ball (vent facing upstream) on hypochlorite, in carbon steel housings that cost a fraction of nickel alloy.

Refineries and the catalyst plant

The Citgo refinery at Lake Charles runs about 470,000 barrels a day, the seventh largest in the United States by the latest federal count, with the Phillips 66 refinery at Westlake and Calcasieu Refining nearby. Alkylation acid, spent caustic, sour water, amine solutions, wastewater neutralization and the sulfuric acid and hypochlorite dosed into cooling towers all belong in lined pipe. So does nearly every stream at the refining-catalyst plant, which turns sodium silicate, sulfuric acid, aluminum salts and rare-earth chloride solutions into catalyst slurry, and at the precipitated-silica plant that reacts sodium silicate with sulfuric acid. PTFE handles the acid and silicate services, with PVDF an option only on cooler, dilute acid, and the abrasive catalyst slurry goes in PVDF within velocity limits.

Crackers, oxides, alcohols and surfactants

The ethane cracker complex at Westlake pairs a cracker of roughly 1.5 million metric tons a year with ethylene oxide and glycol, ethoxylate, Ziegler and Guerbet alcohol, alumina and polyethylene units. A monoethylene glycol plant, a polypropylene plant and the synthetic rubber plant at Sulphur round out the base. Lined pipe shows up at the caustic wash tower and its spent caustic, in the oleum and sulfur trioxide sulfation that turns alcohols into surfactants, in the caustic neutralization that follows, and at the wastewater plant, with PTFE liners where units strip under vacuum, their vacuum rating confirmed for each size and temperature.

Downstream, Cameron LNG at Hackberry runs three trains with about 12 million tons a year of export capacity, Calcasieu Pass exports from the channel mouth, and Sabine Pass in western Cameron Parish is one of the largest LNG export terminals in the country. The liquefaction trains are cryogenic stainless, but every terminal carries lean and rich amine for acid-gas removal, caustic, demineralized water and treatment chemicals in flanged pipe, where lined spools and lined diaphragm valves fit.

What we build for Lake Charles plants

We fabricate custom lined pipe spools and supply lined fittings in 1/2" through 12", PTFE, PVDF or polypropylene lined, in carbon steel or 304 and 316 stainless housings, up to 20 ft per spool, with elbows, tees, reducers and laterals to match, all built to your isometrics.

• Lined valves: PFA-lined ball, plug and diaphragm valves, PTFE-lined butterfly valves, and lined check and sampling valves
• Accessories: lined strainers, expansion joints, PTFE spacers and spectacle blinds, sight glasses and solid PTFE pipe
• Temperature maintenance: clamp-on steam heaters, electric tracing and heat-transfer compound
• Other products for plastic-lined systems

Temperature maintenance is not a cold-climate afterthought here. The 73 percent caustic that chlor-alkali evaporators produce solidifies at roughly 145 °F (63 °C) and has to stay hot everywhere it travels, and 50 percent caustic crystallizes on a cold January night. A clamp-on steam heater or electric tracing under the insulation of a lined spool holds temperature without the cost of a jacketed line.

Standards and testing

Our lined pipe and fittings comply with ASTM F1545. Fittings conform dimensionally to ANSI B16.5 and are welded to ASME B31.3 by welders certified to ASME Section IX, and every lined pipe spool and fitting gets a minimum 10,000-volt spark test before it ships. Liner temperature limits, liner thicknesses, flange dimensions and torque tables are on our technical details page.

Serving Lake Charles, Westlake, Sulphur and Cameron Parish

We supply plants in Lake Charles, Westlake, Sulphur, Carlyss, Hackberry, Cameron, Vinton and Jennings. For a replacement spool on a brine header, a valve package for a hypochlorite unit or a full spool package for a turnaround, call (251) 625-4949 or contact us online. We fabricate custom spools in our own shop and ship them nationwide from Fairhope, Alabama.

FAQ: Lined Pipe in Lake Charles, LA

Can Marspec match the flanged lined pipe already installed in a Westlake chlor-alkali or VCM unit?

Yes. Our lined fittings conform dimensionally to ANSI B16.5 and our spools are built to your isometrics, so they bolt up to existing flanged lined pipe regardless of who made it. Send the drawing or the tag and we will match face-to-face dimensions and liner.

Which liner belongs on the sulfuric acid, sodium silicate and rare-earth chloride lines at a Lake Charles catalyst or silica plant?

PTFE, which covers the full concentration and temperature range and so serves the acid and silicate lines and any spool that sees several fluids on one liner specification; PVDF is an option only on cooler, dilute acid, and polypropylene on dilute acid where a specification calls for it; concentrated sulfuric acid stays in PTFE. We help pick the liner line by line from the fluid, concentration and temperature.

How do we line up spools for a turnaround at a refinery or cracker on the Calcasieu Ship Channel?

Send the spool list and isometrics as soon as the scope is known and we will build the package, spark test every spool and ship it from Fairhope ahead of the window. We also fabricate replacements for the spools that turn up corroded once the unit is open.

Do the LNG terminals at Hackberry and Cameron use lined pipe?

Not in the cryogenic trains, but in the amine, caustic, demineralized water and chemical-feed systems around them, where PTFE-lined spools and lined diaphragm valves keep carbon steel out of the fluid; PVDF suits the demineralized water but not the amine or caustic.