Another tank blows its roof!

An explosion in a 80KL emulsifier tank in an asphalt manufacturing tank in USA has blown the roof lid off the tank. The lid was thrown a sizable distance away causing damage to cars and structures. When you look at the video, please realize that many of your storage tanks that store flammable chemicals may be of much bigger capacity and you can imagine the consequence of an explosion in your tank. Follow all your company hot work procedures strictly.
See the news report and video in this link.


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Refinery fire - possible ignition source and some pictures

Initial investigation into the refinery fire in USA reveals that the possible ignition source could have been an idling  fire truck that was already at the scene prior to the pipe rupture. Investigators are also trying to find out why the  40 year old pipe that ruptured was not replaced even though an adjacent pipe was replaced in the turnaround a few months before the incident.
Read the news report in this link.
See "24 strangely beautiful pictures" of the  refinery fire in this link. You can see two plumes of smoke - one from the fire and one from the flare due to the emergency shutdown.

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Jaipur oil depot fire - powerpoint presentation

An excellent presentation on the IOC Jaipur oil depot fire and Government appointed Shri MB Lall's investigation committee recommendations has been made by Shri SK Roy, GM, HSE, IOC. It can be viewed in this link.

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Corrosion - cause of refinery fire?

 Preliminary investigations by the CSB indicate that corrosion could be the reason for the recent large fire at a refinery in USA. The 8" pipe that failed also had a 12" pipe connected to it. In a turnaround in 2011, the 12" pipe was replaced due to corrosion.  A news article mentions the following "The pipe that failed Monday dated back to the 1970s, investigators said, but it is still unclear whether the thickness testing conducted by Chevron in its last major inspections noted corrosion in that specific, 8-inch pipe". Read the news article in this link.


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Sulphuric acid manufacturing

You can download a good presentation by Dr Mubarak of Jordan, on sulphuric acid manufacturing and associated technical details from this link.
This will be useful for the technical training of operators in sulphuric acid plants.

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Fire in refinery

The CSB is proceeding to investigate a fire in a refinery in the US. The fire was apparently caused by a vapor leak. No one was reportedly killed. It appears that it was a cooling tower fire caused by a flammable vapour ingress. Read the news article and see pictures of the damage in this link.
Thanks to Sanjeevi for sending the link.
See a video of the press conference where the General Manager gets heckled by angry residents in this link. 

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Lessons to learn from emergency drill

An emergency drill was conducted at a production site in Terneuzen, The Netherlands.  See the photos from the drill in this link. There are lessons to learn even from the photos. Do you have the adequate emergency response equipment? Are your people trained to handle these equipment?
See the photos of the drill in this link. 

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An accident due to mixing of chemicals

An accident occurred last month on a work table where two employees were mixing red phosphorus and fiberglass powder. A news article mentions that "Investigators said the employees mix these chemicals on a daily basis in the manufacturing of igniters for military oxygen generators." Static electricity is thought to be the cause of ignition. 

Read the article and see the video in this link.

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H2S desorption incident

I came across and incident where three people died due to H2S liberation when old molecular sieves were exposed to water, that, in turn liberated H2S through a process of desorbtion. This incident highlights the need to understand the technical aspects of process safety which I had mentioned in my last post.
Read the incident in this link.

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Fire in chemical tanker threatened methanol tanks

A chemical/palm oil tanker Bunga Alpinia caught fire, while berthed alongside at Petronas Chemicals Methanol Sdn Bhd terminal in Labuan, Malaysia on the morning of 26th July. Apparently the tanker was discharging cargo when fire on board started from technical breakdown. Though the news article says the cargo was LNG, it was methanol. A lightning strike apparently was the cause of the fire.
There are a number of pictures in this link about the fire and fire fighting operations. See how close the burning tanker was to the onshore tanks containing methanol. They were lucky!

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Not learning from process safety incidents

An article in the Houston Chronicle mentions that "After the lethal explosion at BP's Texas City refinery that killed 15 workers in 2005, the oil industry boosted safety at industrial operations on land but never made the same improvements offshore, according to federal investigators meeting in Houston this week.
The Chemical Safety Board is set to conclude that the offshore drilling sector's focus on monitoring individual worker injuries - while ignoring bigger warning signs of "process safety" problems that could lead to emergencies - set the stage for the Deepwater Horizon disaster."
Read the article in this link. 
I have seen this phenomenon occurring in large chemical manufacturing groups. The lessons from a process safety incident in one unit in a large group was not learnt in another unit of the group. I was heartened to read an article in the newspaper today where a large pharma manufacturer is planning to appoint a technical head to streamline operations to a consistent level. The article mentions that "Underlining the importance of technical expertise, Mr Shanghvi said, historically, for example, senior people with a marketing background handled businesses and also manufacturing. But they would have limited technical expertise, and so the company is looking to separate the two and create a separate set of systems for manufacturing, he said".
I wish all chemical manufacturing companies give the same importance to technical competence as process safety does require a lot of technical competence to understand and follow. Read the article in this link. 
 
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Safety valves and vibration

A news article mentions that there is a dispute between BP and OSHA over spring loaded safety valves. the article mentions that "OSHA is concerned because improperly set valves can result in too much shaking, said Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of labor for OSHA. That vibration could cause the valves -which regulate the opening and closing of pressure vessels - to break.BP believes the valves "comply with industry standards and do not constitute a safety hazard," said spokesman"
The article also mentions that the total cost of the 2005 BP Texas city refinery explosion is 3.5 billion dollars.
Read the article in this link.

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