The Bayway Refinery in Linden, New Jersey — on the New York Harbor — processes mainly light, low-sulfur crude oil. Crude is supplied by tanker from Canada and West Africa, and U.S.-advantaged crude is delivered via rail and marine transport.
A new rail offloading facility — owned by Phillips 66 Partners — began operations in August 2014 with a capacity of 75,000 BPD, opening the site to additional advantaged crude by railcar. The refinery produces transportation fuels, petrochemical feedstocks, residual fuel oil and home heating oil, distributed to East Coast customers via barge, truck, pipeline and railcar.
Varec — a Cognesense brand — the global standard in bulk liquid storage measurement and tank gauging since 1928, with over 800,000 N2500 ATG units sold worldwide.
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Phillips 66 needed real-time, accurate inventory measurement across 100+ tanks running on a Honeywell system at Bayway. The engineering team wanted to swap to radar-based systems with data transmission — but the install hours, infrastructure upgrades and CapEx made radar replacement uneconomic against the ROI window.
The team needed a more practical, cost-efficient option that delivered the required accuracy without disrupting current staff levels.
Varec proposed the Model N2920 Float and Tape Transmitter (FTT) — engineered to work natively with the Honeywell Enraf Bi-Phase Mark field protocol. The N2920 mounts as a bolt-on to existing tank gauges, eliminating the cost of replacing the installed gauging fleet — much of it already Varec’s N2500 Automatic Tank Gauge.
With flexible communications protocols, HART and digital I/O integration, the N2920 FTT meets API 2350 — the industry standard for overfill prevention. Phillips 66 added optional high, high-high, low, and low-low level alarms to strengthen tank safety.
Beyond the near seven-figure savings versus radar replacement, the N2920 delivered immediate operational benefits. Native communication via Honeywell Enraf Bi-Phase Mark and other industry-standard protocols, plus a built-in DC power supply enabling direct RTD wiring — eliminating the need for separate thermocouples and transmitters at the tank.
The N2920 also future-proofs the site: it accepts up to 4 independent HART devices (radar, servo, hydrostatic, temperature), letting Phillips 66 integrate float and tape with multiple other level technologies in a single system.