Navigating Fire Protection in Oil and Gas Using Fire Pump Drivers

00:00:02 Justin Strauss
This episode of the Energy Pipeline is sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and gas. Since the 1930s, Caterpillar has manufactured engines for drilling, production, well service, and gas compression. With more than 2100 dealer locations worldwide, Caterpillar offers customers a dedicated support team to assist with their premier power solutions. Welcome to the Energy Pipeline podcast with your host, host Russell Stewart. Tune in each week to learn more about industry issues, tools and resources to streamline and modernize the future of the industry. Whether you work in oil and gas or bring a unique perspective, this podcast is your knowledge transfer hub. Welcome to the Energy Pipeline.

00:00:52 Russell Stewart
Hey, everybody. As always, thanks for listening. We have a very interesting guest on the show today and a very interesting topic today. My guest on the show is Justin Strauss. Justin is the director of global sales for Clark Fire. Justin, thanks for coming on the show today.

00:01:09 Justin Strauss
Thank you for having me.

00:01:11 Russell Stewart
Well, it's. It's my pleasure. So, Justin, everybody knows I'm in Houston. Where are you?

00:01:19 Justin Strauss
Well, our facility is in Cincinnati, Ohio.

00:01:22 Russell Stewart
Cincinnati.

00:01:23 Justin Strauss
Although I'm originally a New Yorker.

00:01:25 Russell Stewart
Originally a New Yorker. Okay. All right. Is that upstate New York or is that downtown?

00:01:31 Justin Strauss
Actually, I was born in Manhattan and grew up in the suburbs, went to school in upstate New York called Clarkson University, about 20 miles south of Canada, and then ended up in Cincinnati, Ohio. So I actually, I'd never been to Midwest until I graduated where I got my first job.

00:01:50 Russell Stewart
Wow, and your first job was with Clark Fire?

00:01:53 Justin Strauss
It was good. Clark Fire. Yeah. And I've been here, I guess over 34 years now. So I'm one of those unusual people. So right out of school, and it was kind of like during the Gulf War, there weren't any jobs. And so I just had an opportunity, came out and started work and went from there.

00:02:13 Russell Stewart
Okay, so your degree is in what?

00:02:15 Justin Strauss
My degree is called industrial distribution. And it was like half business, half engineering. And the university changed the name to. Is now called Engineering and Management. So that's. That's what kind of interested me. I'd like. I like to get involved in engineering, but a lot of people that took that degree either went into technical sales or production line management. And I kind of did a little bit of both, actually.

00:02:40 Russell Stewart
Okay, well, I actually missed. I didn't complete the actual name of the company. It's Clark Fire Protection Products Incorporated. Tell me about Clark Fire.

00:02:53 Justin Strauss
Well, Clark Fire, I'll try to give a brief history. Cause it's a little strange. Clark. It used to be called Clark GM Diesel. And we were a Detroit diesel distributor for Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. And basically what happened with the Detroit Diesel distributorship is it kind of broke up. But in our territory were these pump companies. One was called Peerless Pump in Indianapolis, and one was called ITT in Cincinnati. And so in our territory, we used to buy and resell fire pump drivers made by Detroit Diesel. And then in 1980, Detroit Diesel said, we don't want to make a listed fire pump driver anymore. So our customer says, why don't you do this? So we kind of took on the business. And then basically what happened was anyone outside of our area, if they wanted a fire pump driver, for example, we had customers in Chicago, they had to buy from the local Detroit Diesel distributor in Chicago, sent it to us, we list it and send it back. And we told Detroit Diesel that a lot of people were complaining about the extra markup. So all of a sudden they said, you can have the entire world for a fire pump driver. So that's when little Clark GM Diesel was a just a small distributor, was able to sell this particular product all around the world. And, and that's how it got started. So we kind of changed our name to Clark Fire Protection Products because we thought we might sell a little bit more than engines and just allow us to keep our options open. But the way we grew was that at the end of the day, we had distribution for Detroit Diesel. Perkins came to the United States and wanted to use our distribution, and so we use our product. Make a long story short, Detroit Diesel purchased another company called Vmitori. That made Perkins upset. They dropped the distribution. And all of a sudden we had to learn to become an OEM rather than buying, resale and sell products all around the world. And then the next big thing that really happened that changed everything for us was in 1998, Detroit Diesel said, we're no longer making missionized products and we're dropping all our engines except for the series 60. So we had to decide if we're going to stay in business or go out of business. And from this point on, we shopped around and worked with, actually got with John Deere to say, we have this product called the fire pump driver and would you sell us engines? And they kind of didn't believe us until we started selling. And then they wanted us to become their primary user. That's kind of how we started getting the business.

00:05:52 Russell Stewart
And it's grown. So you're, you're. You're the global director of sales. You, you mentioned you guys are all over the place, huh?

00:06:01 Justin Strauss
We're all over the place. And also just for your users, I Keep saying our fire pump driver, and people may not even know what that is.

00:06:14 Russell Stewart
That was my next question. So let's go there.

00:06:17 Justin Strauss
Sorry about that. So what our product is, it's a diesel engine that's hooked up to a pump. And the diesel and pump combination make what we call a fire pump unit. And this is installed in various buildings, and it runs a fire sprinkler system. So how it works is you have a sprinkler in a building or in a facility, and there's what we call like a fuse on it with some liquid in it. And when it gets a certain temperature, the liquid explodes and then the sprinkler head opens up. And so there's a drop in pressure in the sprinkler system. And you can have either a diesel engine or electric motor that senses a drop in pressure and it kicks on to pressurize the sprinkler system to help put a fire out. And so we call that a diesel fire pump driver. And we specialize in this product. And we have to meet regulations for something called NFPA 20, which is National Fire Sprinkler Association. And 20 is the Regulations for a fire pump room. And there's basically various regulations that we have to meet. Everything is based on reliability and redundancy. And again, we start our history from just buying a reselling product to actually developing our own product and becoming probably the largest supplier of diesel fire pump drivers in the world. So we have our corporate headquarters here in Cincinnati, Ohio, but we also have another facility over in Cobridge, Scotland, the Glasgow area, where we make fire pump drivers as well.

00:08:02 Russell Stewart
Oh, wow. Okay, so nfpa, that's National Fire Pump Association.

00:08:08 Justin Strauss
Yes.

00:08:08 Russell Stewart
And they're the ones who write the requirements for these things. So you say these fire pump drivers can be either electric or diesel, and yours are diesel. And that's because you go into areas where electricity is probably not available or not the best option.

00:08:31 Justin Strauss
That's actually correct. So I'm always going to shows and fighting diesel versus electric. And so typically in the US most of the facilities are electric because we have reliable electric. However, once you start getting to larger facilities, a standalone diesel is actually less money when you look at the total cost of the building, because the electric motor might require a backup generator, have transfer switches and feeder lines that bring the cost up. Typically when we go overseas, it is mostly diesel engines, but we are used in major facilities such as these large distribution warehouses you start seeing pop up over the place since COVID large manufacturers malls, airports. But we start getting to more and more areas. If you start going to a new area, the electric is not as good as. And so they also tend to have standalone diesels. So that's a majority of it. And our specialty for many years has been supplying fire pump drivers pretty much for the commercial business. Going back a little bit to our history. When we switched over to John Deere, we only went up to 617 horsepower because that's the largest engine they made that could really be used for combine. In the past, when we had Detroit Diesel, we went up to 1100 horsepower. So what we did was we also found other companies we found it used to be called Doosan, now it's Hyundai diesels for non emissionized markets overseas from let's say 280 horsepower to 950. But the last change we had was kind of by mistake was in 2019 where we went to an NFPA meeting and Caterpillar guys came to the meeting and what happened was our vice president at the time joked with him. It's like, why do you guys show up? You don't sell any units. And they looked at us like, well, you sell everything. Why don't you use our product? They said, are you serious? And are you serious? And all of a sudden we started talking with Caterpillar because I don't know how we could go to Caterpillar and knock at the front door and say we want you to switch from your own product to. To working with us to make a fire pump driver. So that happened in, I think 2018. And then we started using Caterpillar engines. Actually starting in 2019, I think the first year, we sold more fire pump drivers using Caterpillar than Caterpillar ever did. So it's a very unique relationship we have and our latest partner, and we've been growing a lot with them ever since then. And because it's Caterpillar, our typical business is commercial. But for industrial and oil and gas, they're typically using Cummins and Caterpillar. And all of a sudden since 2019, we have started going very much into the industrial and oil and gas business with fire protection. And so this is kind of how we evolved and how our latest and greatest changes have been with Caterpillar.

00:11:53 Russell Stewart
Oh, that's great. So since we're specifically talking about oil and gas, there's some challenges to that, aren't there? Like the location of where the fire pump driver is. You're talking about hazardous areas where the wiring and whatnot has to be like explosion proof, I guess, and other specifications you're correct.

00:12:21 Justin Strauss
So I had to learn the hard way because again, we had a commercial product. We first got into Doosan engines and we tried to get going down to Houston trying to get in the oil and gas business. And those engines were very difficult to use because they were big V block engines. People weren't familiar with them, they couldn't have a lot of special options on it. And so we weren't really used and we couldn't be put in any specifications. So what has happened with the Caterpillar in the oil and gas industry is that there's many special requirements for oil and gas. And on a standard fire pump driver to get the process, we have to use what we call listed engines. And so a listed engine is we meet the standards of NFPA 20 and there's a whole section on how the engine needs to be designed and it's a standard. However, what's unique about it is we have to have third party listing from some organizations. So we have Underwriter Laboratory, UL and FM Factory Mutual and they write tests. So UL has a test called 1247. And if we say we want to list an engine, we call them in and they come here to observe how we build the engine, write all the parts down, we test it. We have a whole bunch of tests that are required for 1247. And FM does the same thing. And they have a test called 1333. And when we get approval, we actually get a random audit once a quarter where they come in to make sure that all the parts are used for original listing. And then we run every engine and there's not been any issues. So that's how a listed fire pump driver sold in the market. The problem with oil and gas is that each job is so unique. And so what would happen is there's specialty items like if it's using an oil rig, you want to have like airless shutdowns or you need to have explosion proof wiring. None of these items were ever listed with the engine because it's just a standard commercial engine. And so what happens is when people ask me special items, it all becomes non listed. And then the engineering companies write whatever specification they want. And a lot of it conflicts with fire protection because they're using general engine specs. Another unique thing about fire protection is that it's the only engine in the world designed to run until destruction. As expensive as the engine is, we have to save people's lives in the property and it's considered disposable. Well, most engines are designed to protect themselves. So there's a lot of conflicts.

00:15:16 Russell Stewart
That's interesting. Yeah. And you had to discover all this when you started, started doing this, huh?

00:15:24 Justin Strauss
Correct. So we would get these written specifications from the oil companies and they say, can you comply with this? Now, each installation is a little bit unique, but they had some common themes, they had some common options they were looking at. But again, since these options were never listed with the engine, the engine would be non listed. And the people that compete with each other, one person can say, oh yeah, I want to build this specification which protects the oil company. And the other person would say, you know what, they don't know what they're getting. And I'm going to, I'm going to submit this. And since there's not a listed product that the end user really didn't know what they're going to get. And so it's a very big inconsistency on what the product is in the field. So one of the things, after writing civil letters for the last 20 years in the industry, I always thought, you know what would be interesting? If we can actually design an engine that meets the requirements for different levels of oil specifications and is listed, then it would make life a lot easier for people because they wouldn't have to write deviations or worry that they're not getting things that the oil company needs or what the specification says. And so that's kind of been the goal we've had for the last few years of developing a special fire pump driver that not only has the options that various sites need for oil and gas, but also meets a requirement for NFPA 20 and can be sold with no deviations. One of the big things that we've seen also is that a lot of people retire from the industry. And these specs have been written for many years, passed down for like 30 years or so, and nobody knows why the spec was written, who wrote it, and they're too afraid to change it. And if there's conflicts, we had to do all the work to try to straighten things out. So the goal here would be to say here's a specification and here's everything's up front, full disclosure. So all the people bidding would have the same specification, that the oil company would get what they want and the engineering companies would know exactly what they're getting. And it would help in two ways. I said there's two types of companies. Sometimes they get like the US and Japanese and Koreans where they write a very complicated spec and they ask for things that you don't need but if we have a listed product and say, oh, if you ask for these other things that you don't need, you'll lose a listing, it'll probably say, oh no, I want to keep the listing. And then I got other people that say, just do what you think's best. And they're missing a whole bunch of items that you absolutely need and pulls them up to the level. So they're all bidding on the right platform. So we're trying to make it, to bring, to stop it from getting too complicated, but also making sure people have a minimum spec that they need for the various types of installations. And so that's kind of the philosophy behind why we developed it. And what we're doing is trying to make people's lives easier, whether they realize it or not.

00:18:40 Russell Stewart
And that's what you spend most of your time doing now, huh?

00:18:44 Justin Strauss
Well, not only that, again, we were a commercial company and it took a long time to convince the company. But we've developed a lot of special options needed for land and sea based oil platforms to come up with these unique items. And we also now have a dedicated group of people because I don't like to mix commercial industrial because that's what I had to do when I was on the road. And they say, can you read the 60 page spec? And I say, yeah, I'll get back to you in a couple weeks. Like, oh, we need something right now. So we actually have a group of people that read the specs, decipher it, make the suggestions and point out things that could be mistakes or could be to make sure it meets everything that they need. And that's all they do that they process the special specifications, they process the orders and follow up with the various drawings and requirement witness tests. So that's the other thing unique that we're doing. Not only writing the spec, but having a team to 100% support it.

00:19:50 Russell Stewart
And that's very important because, you know, I guess I hadn't thought about all the complexities of this, but everything that you're talking about, I mean it impacts safety in a, in a dramatic way, right?

00:20:06 Justin Strauss
Absolutely. And so some of the things that are unique, I would say like one of the biggest specs would be from say GOLF of Mexo, the politically correct Gulf of America.

00:20:20 Russell Stewart
There you go.

00:20:21 Justin Strauss
Is, is some of the requirements we've seen there. And what happens is for the oil platforms, what people are saying they're putting in safe areas, I think like on the second to bottom deck on the platform, but it's living in Seawater. And the old engines, the old mechanical engines, what we can do to basically make them like live a long time is like oh yeah, oil pressure gauge. We would screw a gauge into the block and shows oil pressure and everything was mechanical. Now everything's emissionized. And the issue with fire protection is for emissionized engines. We are actually the only application that requires two ECMs or two computers in the engine that if one fails, the other one automatically starts. And so now we have multiple sensors. Everything on the engine need to be protected. So our specification, what we were seeing for specifications, they asked for class 1 div 2 explosion proof wiring, I think group D T3 wiring. And they also asked for air inlet shutdowns because fire protection normally shuts down just the fuel. But if you have gas in the air, it can ingest the gas through the air cleaner. So that would cause the engine to lose the listings we've listed. With those products we'd have explosion proof starters, alternators and heaters. We designed the engine to have stainless steel epoxy coated so it could sit out and be exposed. And then we've listed it with all these items on there. It was not an easy task to do for a one off but we wanted to make it so again everybody knew up front what they're getting. So our first spec is really towards the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of America product. So we could just go out there without any deviations. And then we're looking to do other specifications in the future like Atex and have surface temperatures. But again our goal is to allow you to design, help write specs and to make it so you get exactly what you want without any deviations and to provide all the documentation you need so you don't have to worry about what you're getting and if it complies with the various regulations.

00:22:41 Russell Stewart
Okay, so as far as the additional features that you're looking forward to bringing to the oil and gas industry, you said that you're looking to put it in even more hazardous locations. Now you said meeting class one division one and then you said Alex one division two actually. What's ALEX requirements?

00:23:03 Justin Strauss
So our wiring is non incentives where it cannot get the spark. So everything from the battery to every single sensor on the engine is all protected. The engine ECMs are put into IP66 container a box. We have manual contactors and when the battery boxes come together it's in a type 7 explosion proof box. And we have just actually a couple weeks ago just received our UL listing, UL 1247 that all these Special components meet the fire protection regulation. And then we're also going to get a special UR listing. And I apologize, I don't have the number on me that says that we meet class 1 div. 2, I think group D T3 for temperature of the wiring on the engine. So it's kind of like a hybrid type spec that I've seen very much for specifications in the Gulf area and also in, believe it or not, in Malaysia and Indonesia as well. And so again, the goal is just to have this product and no deviations for the particular spec. So it's just a lot. The biggest thing for us is just letting people know that there's a product like this even exists. It's hard because we're so far down the food chain.

00:24:32 Russell Stewart
Well, I'm glad to introduce this to the Oggen oil and gas audience. Okay, so we got safety covered. Now we're talking about diesel engines. So what about emission standards?

00:24:44 Justin Strauss
So emission standards, the diesel fire pump drivers have to meet emissions. And basically it is. I just sent out an email on this for a customer. I'll look it up. It is on page 28, table 4 of the. See here, I have it here in one sec. I apologize. But essentially our emissions are tier 3 for below 750 horsepower and they're tier 2 for everything above that. And this is under 40 CFR 60, part III, page 28, table 4. And so for fire pump drivers, we don't go to the Tier 4 equivalent because our engines only run a half hour a week under partial load, about 35% load. And the engine doesn't generate enough heat for some of these aftermarket emission equipment to work. And so if the emission equipment has to burn the particulates, it can run a partial load. And that could happen during a fire. And there's no bypass. So it affects reliability of the unit. So the EPA has allowed the fire pump drivers below 750 horsepower to be tier three equivalent and then above 750 horsepower be tier two. And all of our engines, while we have a set of engines that are emissionized and we have another set of engines that are not emissionized. However, all the stuff for the oil and gas will be emissionized no matter where it goes in the world. Just because we're using caterpillar, essentially C13s, C15, C18s and C32s.

00:26:33 Russell Stewart
And I was just going to say that that's what, that's what CAT engines are all about. So that. That probably helps you a lot.

00:26:43 Justin Strauss
Yes. And so we decided to invest in the emissionized product rather than try to do a Me too of some of the older mechanical Caterpillar engines in the past that may or may not be able to use just depending on the emissions of certain locations or even certain countries.

00:27:03 Russell Stewart
So well, Justin, this is all very interesting and I hope we can move you up a little farther up on the on that food chain you were talking about, because fire it's one of the most devastating things that can happen in any industry, and especially in the oil and gas industry. I had no idea how complicated it was. In fact, I guess that's why the legal department at Caterpillar says that I have to say that this particular podcast contains general opinions published for informational purposes and should not be taken as advice pertinent to any specific project, site, operation or business, or as a promise or assurance of any particular outcome or result. Use or application of the information provided herein is at the risk and in the judgment of the user. Clark Fire Production Products, Inc. Is not affiliated with or endorsed by Caterpillar, Inc. Use of Clark Fire Production Products, Inc. With Caterpillar branded products is at the user's own risk. Caterpillar Inc. Makes no guarantees regarding the compatibility, performance or warranty coverage when used with Caterpillar branded products. How's that for a mouthful?

00:28:20 Justin Strauss
I'm glad you said it, not me.

00:28:23 Russell Stewart
Well, they may. They made me say it, so. But that, that actually illustrates where I want to end it right here. Because folks, this is, this is very important and if this is part of what you're involved in, you need to reach out to Justin because it is so complicated and he's got a dedicated team here that can help you navigate all these issues and make sure you stay in compliance. And so Justin, I really appreciate you coming on the show today and me having the opportunity to introduce you to our oil and gas market. And maybe as you're working on some of these other new features and whatnot, we might do it again somewhere down the line.

00:29:12 Justin Strauss
Sounds good. Appreciate the time. Thank you. Russell, thanks for listening to oggn, the world's largest and most listened to podcast.

00:29:19 Russell Stewart
Network for the oil and energy industry.

00:29:21 Justin Strauss
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