Some of you may have seen a giant tank on a massive tractor-trailer rolling through parts of East Texas this morning.
Surface Equipment Corporation
of Kilgore makes things like glycol dehydrators and emulsion heater treaters. A few of you know what those
things are, and maybe you could send me an email to let me know what they are.
I do know that it's some kind of oil field equipment.
But we all know what a tank is,
and Surface Equipment just finished building a big one.
We just had to know how big.
Nearly half a million pounds:
That's a big tank. It's called a slug-catcher.
"This project is about 150 inches
inside diameter by 80 feet long," Steve McLemore, President of Surface
Equipment Corporation said.
"That will catch some big
slugs," I observed.
"Yes, big slugs. This is
separation equipment. It's kind of the first line of defense: the separation
equipment," Steve revealed.
"So it's basically a giant
filter," I concluded.
"A giant filter, absolutely.
Any gas, any hydrocarbon these products have to go through a filtration process
before they become sellable. This is going to pick up all the trash: a lot of
the trash that comes out of these big lines," Steve said.
Surface Equipment has been
around for thirty years and has been making the big stuff since 2007.They have
a crane, but they needed something a little bigger, and then they had to have
the right trailer. It's brand new and has 128 wheels with 32 brakes and
steering mechanisms that talk to each other.
The tank is lifted, and the
trailer comes to it in more ways than one. I thought they'd just cut the straps
and let it drop, but the trailer raises to meet its load.
"We always have something big
going on, and we're expecting some more very similar to this one this year," Steve
stated.
Steve also says they've made
two tanks that were even bigger.
The slug-catcher took about six
months to build. It leaves in the morning and will take a week to transport. It
will have to go through west Texas to avoid as many bridges and overpasses as
is possible.
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The tank weighs nearly half a million pounds
The trailer has 128 wheels with 32 sets of brakes
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