Lined Pipe in Mobile, AL

Mobile is our home market. Marspec Technical Products is in Fairhope, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, and the chemical corridor that runs sixty miles up the west side of the bay and the Mobile River, from the Theodore Industrial Canal through Saraland and Axis to McIntosh, is the industrial base we have fabricated plastic-lined pipe for longer than any other. If you run a chlorine, caustic, acid or peroxide line in that corridor, call (251) 625-4949 and talk to the people who build the spools.

We fabricate carbon steel and stainless spools lined with PTFE, PVDF and polypropylene, fit them with lined valves and accessories, and ship it across the bay or across the country. Contact us online with a drawing or a line list.

The Mobile chemical corridor, plant by plant

The corridor grew up on Gulf access for Panamax chemical tankers at the Port of Mobile and on the salt domes under the Mobile and Tombigbee river bottoms. Those domes are why chlor-alkali production settled at McIntosh in the early 1950s, and the brine, chlorine and caustic that come out of a cell room are the reason plastic-lined pipe exists.

Theodore, Axis and Saraland

The Theodore Industrial Park is anchored by one of the largest single-train phenol plants in the world, making more than 540,000 tonnes a year of phenol (about 900,000 counting acetone), and by a specialty chemical site of roughly 750 people that makes hydrogen peroxide, pyrogenic silica and the feed additive methionine, with its own methyl mercaptan unit. Phenol production means cumene hydroperoxide cleaved over a sulfuric acid catalyst, caustic washes, and a phenol and acetone stream that attacks ordinary gaskets. Hydrogen peroxide has to be kept away from metal ions that decompose it, so it runs in passivated stainless, aluminum or PTFE-lined pipe, with lined diaphragm valves or vented ball and plug valves, vent facing upstream. The Port Authority's liquid bulk terminal on the canal handles liquid chemicals.

North of the city, Axis hosts an acrylic impact-modifier and specialty polymer plant whose wastewater plant treats more than a million gallons a day. Saraland and Chickasaw hold the rail yards, trucking terminals and river berths that move the corridor's acids and caustic.

McIntosh and Calvert

At the top of the corridor, the McIntosh chlor-alkali plant draws brine from the salt dome beneath the town and ships chlorine, caustic soda, sodium hypochlorite, hydrochloric acid and hydrogen. Next door, a plant makes benzotriazole UV absorbers and light stabilizers for plastics and coatings. Downriver at Calvert, a stainless mill of more than a million tons a year runs an annealing and pickling line on mixed nitric and hydrofluoric acid, and a 5.3-million-tonne carbon steel mill pickles hot-rolled coil in hydrochloric acid before cold rolling. Wet chlorine, 32 percent HCl, hypochlorite and HF are four of the hardest services in industry, and PTFE-lined pipe and lined valves handle all four.

Add the tissue mill on the Mobile River with its caustic, peroxide and hypochlorite feeds, the shipyards on Pinto Island, the Mobile River and the Bayou La Batre canal with their blasting wastewater and tank-cleaning chemistry, and the water plants of Mobile and Baldwin County feeding sodium hypochlorite, ferric sulfate and fluorosilicic acid.

What we build for Mobile-area plants

Custom lined pipe spools and lined fittings from 1/2" through 12", straight runs to 20 ft, in carbon steel or 304 and 316 stainless housings, with PTFE, PVDF or polypropylene liners chosen for the fluid and temperature. We fabricate to your isometric and match the flange drilling and face-to-face dimensions of the lined system already in your rack, so a replacement spool drops in during a shutdown.

• Lined valves: PFA-lined ball, plug and diaphragm valves, PTFE-lined butterfly valves, and lined check and sampling valves for chlorine gas, caustic and HCl, with diaphragm valves or vented-ball ball valves on hypochlorite
• Accessories: lined strainers and expansion joints, PTFE spacers, spectacle blinds, sight glasses and solid PTFE pipe
• Temperature maintenance: clamp-on steam heaters, electric tracing and heat-transfer compound for caustic and phenol lines
• Field services, vessel nozzles and related products

Mobile winters are mild, but 50 percent caustic still crystallizes in the fifties and phenol solidifies in the low hundreds Fahrenheit, so traced and insulated lined spools are common on tank-farm transfer lines and rail unloading racks that sit idle between cars. For jacketed or traced service, we recommend specifying PTFE.

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 spool and fitting is spark tested at a minimum of 10,000 volts before it leaves Fairhope. Liner temperature limits, liner thicknesses, flange dimensions and torque tables are on our technical details page. We have been doing this work for more than half a century.

Across the bay and up the river

We serve Theodore, Mobile, Chickasaw, Prichard, Saraland, Satsuma, Axis, Creola, Mount Vernon, McIntosh, Calvert, Bayou La Batre and the plants of Baldwin County on our own side of the bay. For an outage spool package, a single lined valve or a complete unloading station, call (251) 625-4949 or contact us online.

FAQ: Lined Pipe in Mobile, AL

Which liner handles the chlorine, caustic and hypochlorite from the McIntosh cell room?

PTFE is the standard for wet chlorine, sodium hypochlorite and caustic at cell-room temperatures, and we quote it for the cooler caustic and brine transfer lines too. Polypropylene is available for the caustic and dechlorinated brine transfer lines, and PVDF for the brine, where a specification calls for them, and all three come in the same ANSI B16.5 flanged housings.

Can you match the lined flanged system already installed at a Theodore plant?

Yes. Send the flange standard, face-to-face dimensions and liner type on the existing line and we supply replacement spools and fittings to the same dimensions, so they bolt up during a shutdown without re-piping.

Do you supply lined pipe for the acid pickling lines at the Calvert steel mills?

We supply PTFE- and PVDF-lined spools and lined valves for hydrochloric acid pickling, including the fume-scrubber and acid-regeneration return lines, and PTFE-lined spools for the mixed nitric and hydrofluoric acid used on stainless, with PVDF an option only on cooler, dilute mixed acid; polypropylene is available for the hydrochloric lines where a specification calls for it.

How does a Mobile-area plant get a quote on an outage spool package?

Send the isometrics or a marked-up line list to our Fairhope shop by email or through the contact page, and we will come back with pricing and a build schedule. We specialize in custom spools built to field dimensions and ship nationwide from Fairhope, Alabama.