Design and Assembly Services for Natural Gas Pipeline Emissions Upgrades
Natural gas pipeline operators are under increasing pressure to improve performance, reduce emissions, and extend the life of critical infrastructure. In this customer success story, learn how HOERBIGER Engineering Services partners with Swagelok to modernize large-bore, gas-fired engines used in transcontinental natural gas transmission. The video highlights how custom design and assembly services, including precision-engineered fluid system components, subassemblies, and custom solutions, help keep retrofit projects on schedule while improving reliability. Discover how these upgrades deliver significant reductions in nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide emissions, enabling pipeline operators to achieve environmental goals, lower operating costs, and maximize the value of existing assets across midstream operations.
Video Transcript
The work we do here, I think, is pretty important. We mainly reduce emissions on legacy engines that are no longer manufactured as new. To do so, we have to change the fuel system on the engine. Some of these engines were installed in the 1940s, but they are still pumping gas across the country on the pipeline.
The product that Swagelok manufactures and Hoerbiger actually uses on their engines and compressors has to be at a tolerance and specification that does not allow for failure. If there is failure, there can be damage to human life and damage to the environment.
The natural gas transmission industry is thought of in three segments: upstream, midstream, and downstream. The midstream segment that we work with is the long-haul transporters of the gas. They might pick up gas in Texas and deliver it to New York City. So we sell emissions and performance upgrades to the owners of the large-bore, gas-fired engines. We modify them to perform equal to or better than anything that can be bought new today. There are a lot of financial drivers. It is one-third or less the cost of replacement to simply upgrade the equipment to meet the most modern standard. We make reductions in NOx emissions that are on the order of 95% to 97%. We reduce CO emissions on the order of 80% to 90%, and generally without any impact on fuel economy.
For us, and mostly where Swagelok comes into play, we will change a lot of the fuel systems for those engines and also change the turbocharger, including a lot of lubrication lines for turbochargers and new turbochargers that get installed on the unit.
You know, it is very demanding. They are working on maybe a 20-inch pipeline, so these compressors are huge. When they bring one of those pipelines down, they are working on a tight schedule. Schedule is king. They shut that pipeline down, and they have to go in there, retrofit this compressor engine, and be up and running when the compressor company says go. They cannot wait an extra day. They are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars if they miss a deadline.
We originally reached out to Swagelok on the custom solutions side to ask if they could make some of the specialty parts that we use when we are adapting the fuel injectors to these engines. We need a very straight, very small, very constant diameter path for us to succeed.
Initially, we tried to do that connection on our own through local machine shops, and we quickly found some sealing problems with making the Swagelok connection. So we decided that Swagelok knows this connection better than anybody because they are the ones that came up with it. Why not have them make the adapter for us?
It was a game changer for us because we no longer had to buy 15 so we could break five and have 10 that worked. We could buy 10 that worked. How Swagelok pulls it off, I do not know. They make stuff that works, and it does not break.
We are able to help them with a lot of things. We do pre-assembly and subassembly for them, and we do hose advisory services for them. Basically, instead of buying a factory special hose, we can add two inches to it, and it works. It is a standard item off the shelf, as well as building control panels and nitrogen purge panels. Our customer solutions group has basically been able to build that in our shop and, bingo, have it ready for them when they want it.
The EPA has air standards: national ambient air quality standards. One of the key things they measure is ozone. There has been a tremendous reduction in ozone levels in this country over time, particularly in heavily populated areas with emissions regulations. But even now, as we see this done throughout the pipelines, it is impacting the people who have moved nearer and nearer to these sources. Air is not stagnant. The air that is in Georgia started here in Texas, or the air that is in Ohio came from California or Mexico. All along that way, it is picking up everything that is going on in between. So the cleaner the air is, the better it is for everybody. To be able to benefit the environment and the people who live on the planet just makes me happier and proud of what I do.
