APV, a business unit of Invensys, has strengthened its service offering in the Middle East by opening a new dedicated plate heat exchanger refurbishment facility in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia.

“The location of the new facility is important as it will serve industries within the Jubail industrial belt including Qatar, Bahrain, UAE and Kuwait,” an Invensys spokesman said
“The Jubail region is extremely important as the area represents a huge APV user base,” said Erik Petersen, manager of the new facility.
“Many of the industrial process here require the cooling of return process cooling water by using sea water. Most of the Sabic companies in the region generate a lot of excess heat which is dissipated by sea water flowing through a battery of plate heat exchangers”.
 APV has built an international reputation for producing high quality plate heat exchangers. Heat exchangers essentially employ thin corrugated plates pressed together using sealing gaskets in between them to force the liquids to flow in alternate channels (usually in counterflow arrangement) in order to facilitate heat transfer through the plate material. Although the principal is simple the engineering required to build and maintain plate heat exchangers is advanced and as such the new facility has been equipped accordingly.
 After extended periods of usage, plate heat exchangers need to be refurbished in order to clean the plate surfaces to remove any built-up deposits, thereby restoring the heat transfer efficiency. Gaskets also need to be changed as they can become deformed over time due to the high pressing forces. Further, plates need to be checked for corrosion, cracks, pinholes or deformation and some plates may need to be replaced.
APV’s service centre is capable of handling over 15,000 plates annually and caters for both plates manufactured by APV and other manufacturers.
“All refurbishment work utilises the highest quality of materials and all workmanship is backed by a full warranty. A detailed report is provided along with digital photographs and the units are delivered back to the customers in a virtually ‘as good as new’ condition,” the Invesnys spokesman said.
 APV pioneered the plate heat exchanger in 1923 and manufactures one of the widest ranges of gasketed plate-type heat exchangers in the world for various applications including food, pharmaceutical, industrial and HVAC. Main manufacturing facilities are in Denmark and USA.
APV has been present in the Middle East since the early 1970s and has offices spread across the Middle East including Riyadh, Jeddah, Jubail and  Dubai (Jebel Ali).
UK-based Invensys is an automation, controls and process solutions group with businesses designed to help customers in a variety of industries including chemical, oil and gas, power and utilities, telecommunications, paper, food, dairy, beverage, pharmaceutical and personal care.