Lined Pipe in Louisiana
Only Texas has an industrial sector that uses more energy than Louisiana's, which accounts for about 70 percent of the state's total. Its refineries hold about one-sixth of U.S. refining capacity. By shipment value, Louisiana is the second-largest chemical producer in the country. Marspec Technical Products fabricates PTFE-, PVDF- and polypropylene-lined pipe spools in Fairhope, Alabama, and supplies lined fittings and valves to plants across the state. Call (251) 625-4949.
Marspec has worked in plastic-lined piping for more than fifty years. Send us an isometric, a line list or a description of the line you keep replacing, and contact us online for a quote.
How Louisiana's process industry is laid out
Most of the state's chemistry sits on the Mississippi between East Baton Rouge Parish and the Gulf. Petrochemical plants line that 85-mile corridor. Our Baton Rouge page covers the upper river from Port Allen and Geismar to Plaquemine and Donaldsonville. Our New Orleans page follows the River Parishes from Norco and Taft down to Chalmette.
Southwest Louisiana is a district of its own, with chlor-alkali, vinyls, refining and LNG export on the Calcasieu Ship Channel. Our Lake Charles page covers it. The rest of this page covers what those three leave out.
Refining from Shreveport to the coast
Louisiana refines almost 3 million barrels of crude a calendar day, and three of its refineries rank among the ten largest in the nation. Shreveport has a specialty refinery of about 57,000 barrels a day. Cotton Valley has a small specialty-solvents refinery and Princeton a naphthenic lubricant refinery, and Krotz Springs refines on the Atchafalaya.
Whatever the size, a refinery's corrosive streams are a familiar list. Alkylation units use sulfuric acid, treaters make spent caustic, and the sulfur side produces sour water and rich amine. The wastewater plant adds its own acid and caustic. PTFE handles all of them on one liner. PVDF is an option on sulfuric acid to roughly 93 percent at room temperature; 98 percent acid and oleum stay in PTFE.
Chemicals, nitrogen and nitration
The state's basic chemical plants make hydrogen, olefins and other building blocks, and the plants downstream of them need lined pipe. Chlor-alkali cell rooms make chlorine, caustic and hydrochloric acid. Nitrogen complexes make ammonia, nitric acid and urea solutions, and ethylene crackers wash cracked gas with caustic, leaving spent caustic to treat.
Wet chlorine and HCl go in PTFE-lined pipe with vented housings, because both permeate the liner. Ammonia and strong caustic go in PTFE as well: amines and strong caustic attack PVDF, and we prefer PTFE for ammonia.
At Sterlington, north of Monroe, a plant makes nitroparaffins and their derivatives by nitrating propane with aqueous nitric acid. Nitric acid lines belong in PTFE, and polypropylene is never used on nitric or any other oxidizer.
LNG on the coast
Louisiana has four operating LNG export terminals. Sabine Pass, Cameron and Calcasieu Pass are in the southwest, and the fourth, Plaquemines LNG, is in Plaquemines Parish, about 20 miles from New Orleans.
The liquefaction trains are cryogenic stainless, as our Lake Charles page explains. Lined pipe belongs on the amine, caustic and water treatment around them, with PTFE on the amine and caustic that PVDF does not tolerate.
Paper mills, power and water
North and central Louisiana are timber country. International Paper runs containerboard mills at Mansfield and Bogalusa. Graphic Packaging makes beverage paperboard at West Monroe, and Packaging Corporation of America makes kraft linerboard at DeRidder.
Because a kraft mill recovers its cooking chemicals, its lined pipe is on the acids and oxidizers. That means sulfuric acid for tall oil splitting, chlorine dioxide and peroxide in a bleach plant, and effluent treatment chemicals.
Power stations across the state regenerate demineralizer resin with sulfuric acid and caustic. Municipal plants from Shreveport to Houma dose sodium hypochlorite and coagulants. Full-strength hypochlorite carries free caustic, so we put it in PTFE and keep PVDF for weak, lower-pH solutions.
What we supply to Louisiana
Our Fairhope shop fabricates lined spools 1/2" through 12" and up to 20 ft long. Housings are carbon steel or 304/316 stainless, with ANSI B16.5 flanges. PTFE is the liner we recommend. PVDF, the toughest, most abrasion-resistant of the three liners, suits high-purity water and catalyst fines within velocity limits. Polypropylene is available where a specification calls for it.
- PTFE lined fittings in carbon and stainless steel from stock, with PVDF and polypropylene lined to order, on our Louisiana fittings page
- Lined ball, plug, butterfly, diaphragm, check and sampling valves, plus automated valve packages we build in house. Swissfluid PFA- and PTFE-lined valves, stocked in Stafford, Texas, ship from Fairhope, Alabama.
- Lined strainers, sight flow indicators, PTFE expansion joints, spacers and spectacle blinds
- Clamp-on steam heaters, electric tracing and heat transfer compound for caustic and viscous lines
Valve sizes vary by pattern and are listed on our lined valves page. Liner temperature limits, liner thicknesses, flange dimensions and torque tables are on our Technical Details page.
Standards behind the spools
Our lined pipe and fittings comply with ASTM F1545, and lined fittings carry identifying markings on their flanges in accordance with ASTM F1545. Fittings conform dimensionally to ANSI B16.5. The lined fittings we supply are welded to ASME B31.3 by welders certified to ASME Section IX. Before shipment, every lined spool and fitting is spark tested at a minimum of 10,000 volts.
Serving Louisiana from Shreveport to the Gulf
We ship to Shreveport, Bossier City, Mansfield, Monroe, West Monroe, Sterlington, Alexandria, DeRidder, Lafayette, Krotz Springs, Morgan City, Houma, Belle Chasse and Bogalusa. When you request a quote, tell us your required date; we quote a fabrication time with every order. Call (251) 625-4949 or contact us online.
FAQ: Lined Pipe in Louisiana
Do you supply plants in north Louisiana as well as the river corridor?
Yes. Lined pipe, fittings and valves ship nationwide from Fairhope, Alabama. That includes refineries, chemical plants and paper mills around Shreveport, Monroe, Sterlington, Mansfield and West Monroe. The products and standards are the same statewide.
Which liner should carry nitric acid at a north Louisiana nitration or nitrogen plant?
PTFE, which resists nitric acid across the strengths and temperatures these plants run. PVDF is an option for dilute nitric acid at moderate temperature. Polypropylene is not suitable for nitric acid.
Where does a Louisiana kraft mill use lined pipe?
On the acid that splits tall oil soap and trims pH, on bleach plant chlorine dioxide and peroxide, and on effluent chemicals. PTFE covers all of them, and polypropylene is never used on chlorine dioxide.
Do you keep lined fittings in stock for Louisiana outages?
We stock PTFE lined fittings in carbon and stainless steel; PVDF and polypropylene fittings are lined to order. Custom spools are fabricated to your drawings, with a fabrication time quoted on each order.