Veteran movie buffs will recall a great scene in the 1956 epic, “Giant”, when Texas ranch hand turned oil “wildcatter” Jett Rink played by James Dean hits a “gusher”. Covered in the oil that spewed high into the air from his well, he drives up into the yard of the home of the Benedicts, his former employers, played by Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean’s character proclaims that he’ll be even richer than them someday, makes a crude remark to Elizabeth, gets into a fight with Rock...great movie.
In real life, oil only “gushes” like that where there is sufficient ground pressure to push it out. At first, valves control the free flow from beneath the surface. Eventually, the pressure decreases and the oil producer has to pump it out to maintain production. When the productivity of the well decreases because the viscosity of the oil is low making it difficult to seep through the geologic formation to reach it, the producer has to use one of several Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods to keep the oil flowing.
To support one such method of EOR, the high-pressure injection of nitrogen into wells, a liquid nitrogen plant was constructed at Dawson Creek, British Columbia. The plant produces up to 200 metric tons per day of liquid nitrogen using electric-driven compressors. The gas will then be stored in massive storage tanks for later transloading to trucks that will deliver the liquid nitrogen to the well sites for well stimulation by injection at high volume and pressure where it cracks the rock in the well and increases the well’s productivity.
Delivery of the tanks is where Perkins comes in! Perkins was contracted by a leading international supplier of industrial gases to move four (4) cryogenic storage tanks from a fabricator in Mont Belvieu, TX to Dawson Creek, BC. The first pair of storage tanks were transported together and all four were moved safely and to the satisfaction of our client during AB spring road bans. To move each of the 136’ - 0” long tanks that were 12’ - 6” wide and 13’ - 7” high weighing 220,000 lbs., Perkins used 12-line Goldhofer THP/DL dual lane loading hydraulic platform trailer combinations to manage the loaded height of 17’ - 4”. This helped to minimize the impact of hourly utility assistance and private bucket truck costs while meeting weight limitations in the US states and the lower seasonal weight restrictions of two Canadian provinces, AB and BC, without the need for reconfiguration at the US/CAN border.
