If it is a gas fired thermal oil based heating system (to allow good control of the process heat with PLC proportional oil flow control valves to process heat exchangers) then the system needs to be heated very slowly over a long period of time until the oil is safely above the water-steam phase change temp and then you can increase system temp up to operating temp fairly rapidly. But heating up a thermal system from a cold start does use a lot of gas and even more if it is cold ambient. Rincon was max 15C in the late afternoon last week but they likely had the heat plant warming all day and it was down near 7 degrees C in the early morning. It would be interesting to know what size burner is installed.
AGY Price at posting:
24.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
