Big move across the way

Size matters in the niche liquefied natural gas industry, a point on full display Sept. 9 outside Port Manatee in north Manatee County.

That's where Air Products held a ceremony to rollout the first completed liquefied natural gas heat exchanger it manufactured inside the $57 million plant it opened in 2014. The exchanger, which laid out looks like a rocket ship, made its way from Air Products' plant, across U.S. 41 to the port. It was then loaded onto a barge, headed for a customer at another Gulf of Mexico port.

“I am proud to say that no one in the world builds coil wound heat exchangers as large as we do,” says Sandy McLauchlin, general manager of liquefied natural gas, cryo-machinery engineering and manufacturing at Air Products, in a statement. “When we selected this site, we believed it provided us with everything we needed in an operational location. I can tell you we made a wise choice. This new facility will help us maintain our market leadership position.”

A liquefied natural gas exchanger could be more than 15 feet in diameter and 180 feet long — or about two-thirds of the size of a football field. A finished unit can weigh as much as 500 tons.

The exchangers, in use at gas facilities in 17 countries, including multiple remote locations, unlock natural gas through a cryogenic liquefying process. Clients are oil and gas companies and some governments. The exchangers are made in an assembly-line-like process in Manatee County, going from building to building inside the five-building, 300,000-square-foot Air Products campus. It typically takes 24 to 26 months to build one unit.