Increasing specialization in chemical and petrochemical production requires to operate with raw material always more pure in order to optimize their use and to get better production results. Products which do not comply with purity standards can dirty the entire batch.

As a matter of fact, oil & gas and petrochemical plants includes on line analysing instrumentation as gas chromatographers or blend analysers aimed to certify the characteristics of the analysed fluid. Validation is the process of checking the actual reading of the analyser against an expectation that may be provided by an external laboratory, a certified sample or other techniques like internal diagnostics. The process analyser has a continuous sample flowing. It may be cooled or heated or filtered or coalesced or all of the above and the final sample to the analyser is a dynamic sample. Change any one of these parameters and it is possible the result will change. So it is important to present the validation sample to the analyser in as close an identical condition as the process sample. This means flowing at the same flow rate, pressure, temperature so that the analyser and sampling components see no change. That is true validation. The ultimate intent of the analyser package is to certify the blend.

DG IMPIANTI INDUSTRIALI S.p.A has been awarded with the contract to design and supply two validation packages, for diesel and gasoline, to the Saudi Oil Company SATORP. The job required a deep engineering and design phase with 3D modelling followed by the supply of high quality stainless steel ASME U Stamp tanks containing the fluids for the blend product; the packages includes also the mixing system, the chilling system and all piping, instrumentation and electrical connections. Everything has a characteristic of huge precision: tanks are insulated and built with a shell-in-shell system, with circulating chilling fluid in the between. Such system has been designed by DG IMPIANTI mechanical department which operated to optimize the thermal exchange between the chilling fluid and the product used for the validation sample. Furthermore, the whole package shall prevent any contamination of the validation fluids from outside agents in order to guarantee its purity.