The section of the report that starts with this is
Post# of 43064
"We use a device called a condenser to cool hot liquids or heat cold liquids."
Condensers do not heat cold liquids. I challenge anybody to find a reference to a definition of a condenser that includes heating cold liquids.
Condensers turn hot gases into liquids. Period.
All of the condensers are located inside the building and turn hydrocarbons that are in vapor form into a liquid form.
They did say that they built a new water cooling system. This system may include vessels that are located outside and are used to cool water for the condensers. If they had said that parts of the condensation system included components that had welds that failed due to stresses induced by the cold I might have accepted what was said. The water would enter those vessels hot and need to be cooled. The system would typically need refrigerant to do the cooling. It could be that this system is partially located outside. None of the satellite photos of the system (Google maps) show this type of system outside the building, but those may not be recent enough.
The beginning of the section describing the issues is not credible as written. It was written by someone who has no idea what they are talking about. Probably the new financial guy's version of what was told to him.
The condensers are definitely not located outside and it makes no sense that they would be affected by cold weather.
This part makes more sense, but only if taken in the context of a condenser system: "In the spring of 2013, we standardized, acquired and installed new condensers for cooling to standardize all condensers across the factory. We also designed, procured, and installed central plant support systems for our processors including: centralized water chilling and storage, centralized gas compression for collect, compress and distribute off-gas generated by processors, centralized hot oil system for cooling high temperature fluids, and developed a site control system to monitor all of the auxiliary plant support systems. In late December 2013, the new condensers installed across the plant and in the processors began to fail. Over a six week period, all the new condensers failed in operation. Upon reviewing the failure in the condenser, we found the stitch welding used to manufacture them was defective."
It sounds like the site control system didn't do its job in addition to the manufacturing issues.
I wonder if Heddle Marine was responsible for the failed welds.
I wonder if this is why we haven't heard anything from the captain of this sinking ship.