Dolphin Supports Turnaround at Ruwais Polyolefins Complex

A polyolefins complex at Ruwais scheduled a planned turnaround to address fouling across its heat recovery exchangers — polymerising services are aggressive foulers, and cumulative fouling had begun eroding heat recovery efficiency across the unit, pushing energy consumption upward between successive turnaround cycles.

Dolphin's maintenance team cleaned, tested and recertified 34 exchangers across the complex during the turnaround window, working alongside the client's own shutdown schedule to avoid extending the outage. Cleaning method was matched to the deposit found on each unit rather than applied uniformly — a mechanical clean where scale had loosened, a chemical circulation where it had hardened onto the tube surface.

Post-clean performance testing against each exchanger's original design duty confirmed heat recovery efficiency had been restored, not just visually cleared of deposit — a distinction that matters on a polymerising service where a unit can look clean and still underperform against its rated duty.

All units were returned to service on schedule, with a full documentation package — cleaning records, test results and inspection findings — handed over for the client's asset integrity files, giving the next turnaround planning cycle a clean baseline to work from.