The War in the Ukraine

PiSigma

"the engineer"
Well, as a starter, a typical heavy refinery eqipment is as strong as the sidearmour of a main battle tank.

Additionally, all refinfery has few hundred, or thousand count maintanance team, whom has decades worth of experience about the equipment.

They have spares, and usually the equipment accross internal plants similar or same.

Means, if you destroy the pumps of the main fractional distillation column third time, and they haven't got more spare then they will switch off a less important plant , and raid the pumps and valves of it.
Worst case they can't make the proper diesel : Petrol : kertosene ratio,and has to store excess heavy for bit longer time.

There are engineers in the plant, and if needed they will re-design the equipment to continue the process.

So, to cause real harm you need to drop lot of bombs, periodically, and destroy lot of equipment .
And of course, in half year time the new spares manufactured, so this process needs to repeated continously, and with increased speed.

Bescause they are not stupid, so the supliers will start to make more equipment epxecting repeated strikes.
There is only so much canablizing you can do to fix equipment. If pump seals are the same type, sure strip away, same with manual valves and piping.

When it comes down to actual equipment, process conditions vary widely between equipment so it's not easy to replace or reroute fluids.

Refineries don't have equipment as thick as tank armor. Most refinery equipment are fairly low pressure, so equipment and piping are designed for ANSI 150 or 300. That means the steel is not very thick, and you don't need to have it broken just weakened. Fires weaken steel... So unless you can hydro test everything, good luck running the plant.

Maintenance crew don't fix equipment in the fly and certainly can't fix a complex compressor or patch up a hole in a vessel. Their job is to swap out broken equipment with spares.

Site engineers don't redesign equipment on the spot, they give suggestions to reroute or optimize flows.

If you want to know how oil and gas facilities are run in real life, I literally run an oil and gas facility, this is my bread and butter. And I have worked in a refinery before (Anacortes Washington Shell).
 

Anlsvrthng

Captain
Registered Member
There is only so much canablizing you can do to fix equipment. If pump seals are the same type, sure strip away, same with manual valves and piping.

When it comes down to actual equipment, process conditions vary widely between equipment so it's not easy to replace or reroute fluids.

Refineries don't have equipment as thick as tank armor. Most refinery equipment are fairly low pressure, so equipment and piping are designed for ANSI 150 or 300. That means the steel is not very thick, and you don't need to have it broken just weakened. Fires weaken steel... So unless you can hydro test everything, good luck running the plant.

Maintenance crew don't fix equipment in the fly and certainly can't fix a complex compressor or patch up a hole in a vessel. Their job is to swap out broken equipment with spares.
Well,I have different experiences, in a soviet made refinery, in the 90s.

Workshop full with large machining centers, lathes and tools, and ready to make anything that required.

Repair, welding , forming done in the plant maintanance workshop.


And I presume the russians still stayed on a more robust ,bit more expensive but hard to destroy : )

Of course at that time was a requirement for the large transfofrmer /switchgear / generator plant had to have independent electrical supply , with owne generator and steam turbine.


I haven't got western and/or recent refinery experience.
Msot likelly everything cut back to bone, and just as much required. As everywhere lese .
 

PiSigma

"the engineer"
Well,I have different experiences, in a soviet made refinery, in the 90s.

Workshop full with large machining centers, lathes and tools, and ready to make anything that required.

Repair, welding , forming done in the plant maintanance workshop.


And I presume the russians still stayed on a more robust ,bit more expensive but hard to destroy : )

Of course at that time was a requirement for the large transfofrmer /switchgear / generator plant had to have independent electrical supply , with owne generator and steam turbine.


I haven't got western and/or recent refinery experience.
Msot likelly everything cut back to bone, and just as much required. As everywhere lese .
Refineries don't carry much spares of anything. My warehouse is mostly for catalysts and chemicals. We also can't have a hundred guys standing around waiting for something to break. Reliability is normally good enough that I rarely have to request maintenance outside of turnaround or prescheduled maintenance. So in a war scenario, good luck any labor or parts of something gets bombed.
 

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
Well,I have different experiences, in a soviet made refinery, in the 90s.

Workshop full with large machining centers, lathes and tools, and ready to make anything that required.

Repair, welding , forming done in the plant maintanance workshop.


And I presume the russians still stayed on a more robust ,bit more expensive but hard to destroy : )

Of course at that time was a requirement for the large transfofrmer /switchgear / generator plant had to have independent electrical supply , with owne generator and steam turbine.


I haven't got western and/or recent refinery experience.
Msot likelly everything cut back to bone, and just as much required. As everywhere lese .

Soviet infrastructure was built for maximum survivability. Western infrastructure was built for maximum profitability.
 

Soldier30

Captain
Registered Member
Footage of an American F-15 fighter jet attempting to shoot down an Iranian drone, "Shahed-136," in Iraq. The pilot allegedly attempted to shoot down the drone with a 20mm M61A1 Vulcan cannon, but was unable to engage the target due to the short range between the aircraft and the drone.

 

Anlsvrthng

Captain
Registered Member
Refineries don't carry much spares of anything. My warehouse is mostly for catalysts and chemicals. We also can't have a hundred guys standing around waiting for something to break. Reliability is normally good enough that I rarely have to request maintenance outside of turnaround or prescheduled maintenance. So in a war scenario, good luck any labor or parts of something gets bombed.

You are right.

I have to revisit memories, and chacking the current state of refineries in poland/slovakia they are closer to your description than to my memories.

And finally ,suck the recongise Im getting fossil and one of the depositories of 30-40 years old memories : D
 

Soldier30

Captain
Registered Member
Footage of the Russian Lancet kamikaze drone's combat use in Ukraine in March, part 2. This isn't all the drone's uses. The Lancet-51 kamikaze drone is used most frequently, while the Lancet-52 kamikaze drone is used much less frequently. The video shows Lancet kamikaze drone strikes against Ukrainian military equipment in the Donbas and Ukraine.

 
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