An innovative idea provided a great solution to keep the CA2 heat exchanger at the CITGO Lake Charles Manufacturing Complex operating and in compliance.

Earlier in 2008, leaks in the CA2 heat exchanger threatened to shut down the CA2 unit or the refinery would face the possibility of being out of compliance. The Operations department and OED tried plugging tubes in the exchanger as a temporary fix since the unit's planned turnaround would not take place until 2009. The temporary measure helped, and by May 2008, 466 out of 1,000 tubes in the exchanger had been plugged, and the unit was still exceeding environmental emissions.

The Acid Plant Improvement Team comprised of Operations, OED and Fixed Equipment personnel met to discuss a plan that would allow the unit to keep running until its scheduled turnaround. After considering three options that would keep the unit functioning and in compliance, the team decided to repair the exchanger by implementing a process called sleeving the tubes. The application required the team to install sleeves on the inner diameter of tubes.

Once the team began implementing the sleeving process, they discovered that the sleeves were not long enough to eliminate all of the leaks, and they were forced to shut down the acid plant due to environmental emissions.