Marsh Hawk: Recommended for Reliability

Background

Gibson Energy is a midstream service provider with a focus on transportation, storage, blending, processing, marketing and distribution of crude oil, condensate, NGL’s, and refined products.
The waste management facility in Claresholm, Alberta deals with a number of environmentally challenging byproducts including production water, soil & solids, hydrochloric acid, and various
other types of contaminates. In order to protect the environment as well as area residents, byproducts must be handled and processed in a way that ensures process integrity and prevents
gases from escaping to atmosphere.

Challenge

Gibson Energy’s Claresholm facility needed a way to mitigate the risks of fugitive leaks without sacrificing ease of access. Past solutions involving other manufacturer’s products did not provide
sufficient leak protection and had consistent issues with requiring a manual reset after controlled venting. This put workers at risk and added extra cost to maintain.
A second problem was condensation. Excessive moisture caused ice build-up around the inside of standard thief hatches and would interfere with seals and springs. This also contributed to
leak issues and required workers to physically clear the vents, again putting workers at risk and adding extra maintenance cost.

Solution

The Marsh Hawk Anti-Freeze Thief Hatch provided the sealing and freeze resistance necessary to ensure workers could access the tank, but also provided superior sealing abilities to prevent
escaping vapors. Due to the unique deep-set design of the Marsh Hawk and single gasket for both pressure and vacuum, the seal remains inside the tank and free from ice. Furthermore, the design of the Marsh Hawk allows condensation to drip back into the tank and not collect at the surface thus providing further anti-freeze protection. The Marsh Hawk has proven to be operationally more efficient by eliminating flutter and low leak rates because of a single spring adjustable pressure setting.

Benefit

Gibson Energy’s Claresholm facility recently completed a changeover and now operates all their tanks using a Marsh Hawk Anti-Freeze Thief Hatch. The Marsh Hawk has proven to be
easy to maintain and very cost-effective with regular lubrication being the only requirement. The Marsh Hawk design is self-resetting and is recommended by the industry professionals that
use it.