A small explosion early on Monday morning led to the partial shutdown of production at ISP’s acetylene facility in Marl Chemical Park. The failure was caused by a short circuit in a main power transformer. But thanks to the efforts of Infracor’s Utilities and Waste Management unit, production was back up and running again in a remarkably short space of time.

“Once the necessary power network safety measures had been implemented at the incident site, we were able to replace the defective transformer with an identical transformer that was available as part of the power network. The goal was to reestablish the availability of the customer’s plant as quickly as possible,” says Axel Rogat, production manager for power network operations at Infracor’s Utilities and Waste Management unit.

Removing the defective device proved challenging due to the complex way in which the transformer was linked to the network. “Our team spent two days working round the clock. Replacing the 80-tonne transformer meant that, in addition to the electrical engineering work, we also had to lay a ballast bed on which we then installed a section of rail track so that a powerful truck-mounted crane could be deployed,” explains Axel Rogat further.

Dr. Klaus Köster, Chief Executive of ISP Marl, was clearly impressed: “The Infracor team managed to replace the transformer within two and a half days – that has to be a record. That type of procedure typically takes around seven days. The Infracor personnel showed huge commitment to getting our production plant up and running again. That kind of response is only possible because we are located at the Chemical Park where we’re embedded in a very efficient service infrastructure that guarantees us high levels of plant availability.”


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Source: Infracor