Sunoco Marcus Hook

SXL Mariner East Project - Propane and Ethane Separation and Storage

What does this facility do?

This is a facility near Philadelphia Pennsylvania that separates ethane and propane from an incoming pipeline (from Marcellus Shale gas in Western PA).  The system uses a cryogenic separation process and stores both the ethane and propane as refrigerated liquids at low pressure.

There are large insulated storage tanks for each product.  Each tank has boil-off gas handling.  All refrigerated gases constantly boil-off due to heat leakage into the storage tank.  This gas must be handled appropriately.  One method is to compress the gas and push it into a pipeline to consumers.  Another is to re-refrigerate it (cool it back down) and pump it back into the tank.

My role in this project

I briefly worked on this project helping out with loop checking (check the instrument, display of the instrument on the operator interface, alarms, shutdowns, etc).  I also commissioned the CCTV system.

Overall this was my shortest project with CB&I as I quickly left to move on to newer and more challenging endeavors.