HOUSTON, November 12, 2024 - Smith & Burgess, has been named a recipient of the Houston Chronicle’s Top Workplaces 2024! This prestigious award celebrates companies that excel in fostering positive workplace cultures, and we are honored to be included in this year's list.

Houston, TX – Smith & Burgess, a leading Process Safety Management (PSM) engineering consulting firm specializing in integrated process safety management solutions, today announced the launch of its new redesigned website at smithburgess.com. The revamped site features a modern design intuitive navigation, and technical content tailored to meet the needs of our clients, partners, and industry professionals.

“We are excited to unveil our new website to help clients explore solutions to achieve a high level of PSM, meet regulations and enhance efficient and reliable operations,” said Dustin Smith, Co-Founder & Principal Consultant, Smith & Burgess.

"The newly redesigned website showcases our comprehensive range of PSM-compliant solutions and underscores our vision for continued growth and innovation in the field of process safety," added John Burgess, Co-Founder & Principal Consultant, Smith & Burgess.

In today’s digital age, the protection of sensitive data is paramount. Businesses across all industries must ensure their data handling and security practices meet rigorous standards to maintain trust and protect their clients. At Smith & Burgess, we understand this responsibility, and we are excited to announce that our software, Salus, has achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance with an unqualified opinion. This award reflects our unwavering commitment to security, operational excellence, and client satisfaction.

When John and I started Smith & Burgess in 2007, we envisioned a company that would make the industry safer with a focus on Customer Service, Expertise, and Integrity. We felt these core values would create an engineering firm we could be proud of. Over the past 15 years, there has been a lot of change in the industry. Environmental and renewable fuels projects are more common now than ever. However, flares still seem to be undersized, facilities are still changing, and projects are ongoing. From the volatility in oil prices in 2009 to the boom prior to the pandemic… and then COVID-19: providing PSM engineering services has definitely kept us on our toes. But through it all, these core values remained stalwart and have served as a framework by which we make decisions in running the company.

As we pass the two-year mark from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we can look forward to increasing normalcy while looking back at the ways the past two years have changed us.

Did you know that liquid trim valves can be certified for vapor? 

There is often confusion around the required trim and certification when selecting a new safety-relief valve. For example, when there are both vapor relief scenarios and liquid relief scenarios, is a dual-certified PRV required? What about when the service is liquid but the controlling scenario is vapor? In the past, we have recommended “dual-certified” PRVs when there are both liquid and vapor relief scenarios, but these valves can be difficult to obtain or could have long lead times.  When might there be alternatives? In this discussion we will look at what liquid trim means and when different trims may be suitable for different relief possibilities.

Aside from the expected software improvements from a decade of development (including a remote server-based architecture, dedicated thermodynamics engine, and smattering of user interface and stability improvements), Salus has become an industry-leading flagship of relief systems design.

Inlet Stability

Interest in renewable diesel has increased significantly in recent years. In 2019, the estimated US renewable diesel consumption was 900 million gallons ^[1] followed by an estimated 960 million gallons in 2020.^[2] This trend is expected to continue in the coming years.^[3] Conversion of existing petroleum facilities to renewable diesel production provides an appealing path for many producers, but careful evaluation of the conversion must be performed to ensure that the facility is operating safely and in full compliance with PSM standards. While the existing relief and flare systems may have been adequate for the petroleum refinery service, these systems should be reviewed and redesigned along with the new process as the demand on these systems can significantly change.

After spending over 20 years in the cold Midwest winters and suffering through plant freeze ups, my mind is racing with what to look out for as things thaw back out. Please see my thoughts on instrumentation, dead legs, and a few other things to look out for based on my years of experience in the freezing weather.  

About the Author
Stuart Maxwell holds an MA in Management from the University of Aberdeen and has over 16 years of business development, consulting and program management experience in the oil, gas and petrochemical industries working with many IOCs, large independent operators and EPCs across the globe. Stuart, as a non-engineer, isn’t going to execute any Flare QRA projects anytime soon but uses his expertise and focus on our clients’ problems to make sure our teams, capabilities, and tools can help clients succeed.

About the Author
Mr. Baum has over 40 years of experience in Process Safety Management. He has been a process and risk assessment professional since 2006. Additionally, Mr. Baum has experience in refineries and chemical plants where he has held positions responsible for the development, implementation, and management of the PSM element.

About the Author
Mr. Smith has over a decade of experience, with a specialization in relief systems design and documentation, PSM compliance audit reviews, heat and material balance generation, PHA concern resolution, and flare system integration and optimization. Dustin is a chemical engineering graduate of Texas A&M University, a licensed Professional Engineer in Texas and LOPA certified.

About the Author 
Christopher Heflin is a degreed Chemical Engineer from Texas A&M University with over 8 years of experience in pressure relief analysis and relief system software, and is the lead training instructor for Salus and Data Insights courses both locally and internationally. He also plays an active role in the development of new features as well as ongoing software support.

Coronavirus Impact

Despite the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic, we have happily added several new members to the Salus family as an increased drive toward digitization and organization sweeps the industry. As a result, Salus has streamlined migration efforts for client’s existing data – whether in digital or physical copies – to be utilized efficiently in the software.

The COVID-19 Challenge

As the COVID-19 disease became a pandemic in the span of mere weeks in USA (months for the world), most of us who work in the process safety/engineering field has probably asked, or been asked:

• What kind of precautions have you taken to minimize the COVID-19 spread through:
  • Human contact
  • Computer equipment
  • Shared office spaces
  • Common areas
• How do you determine “non-essential” personnel that should not have access to your facility?
• What is your contingency plan if/when travel or access is restricted?
• How can you keep normal work efficiency for these “non-essential” personnel working offsite?
• What kind of resources do you need to work offsite?

Did you know, OSHA does not allow block valves on the inlet of relief valves installed on air receivers in compressed air systems?

OSHA CFR 1910.169(b)(3)(ii) states, “No valve of any type shall be placed between the air receiver and its safety valve or valves.”

Did you know, relief devices that protect process pipe may be set to open above the piping design pressure?

Per ASME B31.3-2016, Sections 322.6.3. (see Figure 1) and 302.2.4 (f) (see Figure 2), a thermal relief valve may be set up to 120% of the design pressure of the protected system with the owner’s approval, as long as, the allowable accumulation criteria in 302.2.4.(f) are met. Set pressures lower than 120% of the design pressure may be required depending on the allowable accumulation pressures in 302.2.4 (f).

"Great teamwork is the only way we create the breakthroughs that define our careers."

As we enter 2020, most of us have already taken a moment to reflect on last year's successes and failures. (At least on a personal level.) A somewhat painful and unavoidable exercise to help guide your decisions in the upcoming year.

However, how many have taken stock of our past decade's personal successes and failures?

If you haven't, quickly give it a shot right now.

Todd Mission Volunteer Fire Department Appreciation Lunch:

In June of 2019, Smith & Burgess coordinated an appreciation lunch for the City of Todd Mission’s Volunteer Fire Department at their station. Located in Grimes County and immediately next door to the area’s highly-popular Renaissance Festival, the City’s fire department covers 30 square miles and approximately 6,000 residents.

Smith & Burgess representing at the 2019 Hydrocarbon Processing Awards

In late September, Smith & Burgess was honored to be listed as finalists in three categories at the 2019 Hydrocarbon Processing Awards.

We are excited to announce Mr. John Burgess will be presenting "The Unintended Consequences of Relief Device Pipe Modification" at tomorrow's REMBE's Safety Conference.

REMBE^® Process Safety Days is a two-day networking event with highly topical presentations, live demonstration and an extraordinary evening event. It is dedicated to engineers, planners, operators, technicians, maintainer, safety inspectors, technical experts and inspection personnel in supervising organisations.

Actively supporting the Society of Women Engineers:

To celebrate Smith & Burgess’ support of “International Women in Engineering Day,” we are proud to announce Ms. Jill Bohnet as the winner of our first annual “Smith & Burgess: Process Safety Scholarship Award.”

Establishing and maintaining an effective safety culture is a symphony of challenges and moving pieces.

Too often, those responsible engineers are stretched thin with competing priorities. Smith & Burgess is here to help. Our culmination of Process Safety knowledge enables us to quickly provide our clients with practical solutions that lead to compliance, significant cost-savings, and of course, peak facility safety.

Pressure relief systems and devices are used to prevent equipment and pipework from over-pressurization which can lead to mechanical failure and associated release of containment.

In order to function correctly, relief systems need to be properly designed to recognized standards, correctly installed and properly maintained. Changes to associated plant and pipework also need to be appropriately managed; often, seemingly unrelated changes can have an impact on the relief case of the system and render it incapable of protecting the system as designed. This is seen particularly on older plants with poor change management history.

The following list provides some details on the areas you should focus on when improving the quality of your Relief Validation Study.

With more brownfield capital projects coming back to life many operating companies are mobilizing to increase their facility's charge rates.

If you are one of these companies looking for improvements, correctly evaluating your flare system's maximum capacity could "make or break" your project's feasibility studies.

Smith & Burgess is excited to announce our recent partnership with the Houston Chapter of "Society of Women Engineers." 

The Society of Women Engineers, also known as SWE, is an inclusive organization focused on issues of interest to women specializing in engineering and technical careers. The SWE Houston Area Chapter is the fourth largest chapter in the Nation with almost 700 members.

Like many professional engineering organizations, Smith & Burgess has benefited from the recent increase in female engineers in today's marketplace. With the addition of 10 new hires in 2018, Smith & Burgess' female engineers now represent 35% of our total engineering staff – an increase of over 40% since January of 2016.

The Opportunity:

A major United States refinery, with a significantly high Nelson Complexity Index rating, had nine flare stacks and multiple engineering contractors working within the facility which made managing their flare design and documentation a challenge.

The Opportunity:

A major United States refinery was in the process of installing a site-wide rate increase and hired a competing engineering firm to perform the feasibility study. The engineering firm sized their crude fractionator and recommended new relief devices that would require modifications to their existing flare header. The refinery’s corporate office called Smith & Burgess and asked us to perform a third-party review on the engineering firm’s recommendations. 

Anyone tasked to start up a unit knows the engineers who designed it rarely miss a thing...

Every bleeder valve is in the right place, spectacle blind turned correctly, and bypass line scrutinized. So why would the flare and relief systems design be any different? The truth is that they are not. Engineering Firms today have perfected the art of throwing waves of engineers on design-build projects. Unfortunately for those engineers, relief and flare system designs are governed by a maze of regulations, codes, standards, and guidelines (collectively known as Recognized and Generally Accepted Good Engineering Practice or RAGAGEP). Experienced Project Managers understand that relief and flare specialists are needed to ensure their projects are safely and properly designed before any construction occurs.

Ms. Amanda Mueller  |  Process Safety Consultant

Ms. Mueller is a graduate from the University of Missouri with a degree in Chemical Engineering. She has extensive experience with Relief Systems and Flare Design projects. Over the past three years, Amanda has been an invaluable addition to Smith & Burgess' engineering staff and consistently exhibits the firm's dedication to quality process safety management.