[atc23]

I was at Cushing Oklahoma Station 32 on the Trans Canada pipeline last week trying to address some cavitation issues with 38,000 GPM transfer pumps. Initial impressions are that the pumpage is much lower in SG than they were designed for - I was surprised when the customer told me they weren't pumping crude "at the moment" but a much lighter hydrocarbon from a tank farm a mile or so away. None of this makes any sense to us. The customer said they expected cavitation with "this" pumpage - "we start taking suction from Ponca City in a week or so - that's the higher SG crude". " as long as you can guarantee the noise us cavitation and not a mechanical issue - that's what we care about now".

good article

[thackney]

I do work in Mont Belvieu at a facility that has over 60 different pipelines entering and leaving the facility (natural gas and multiple different grades of natural gas liquids).

Not everything is cross-connected but the manifolding via valving is incredible. Pumps designed for one grade get used for another as price and market conditions swing. It can be very frustrating for a design engineer when operations gets a new idea for a “temporary” condition.