Smith & Burgess' Blog

Refinement of Disposal System Design Loads

Posted by Edgard Kurnia on Jan 11, 2019 9:59:15 AM
 

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.

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Topics: Overpressure Protection, Feasibility Studies, RAGAGEP, Flare Optimization, Quantitative Risk Assessment, QRA, Rate Increase, API 521, CAPEX, Disposal System Design, Dynamic System Modelling

Case Study: Wellhead Gathering System Overpressure QRA

Posted by Dustin Smith, P.E. on Jan 1, 2018 4:58:00 PM

The Opportunity:

A review of the “overpressure protection plan” for a wellhead gathering pipeline found that the potential for “multiple simultaneous well shutdown system failures” had been overlooked. The flowing pressure on the inlet to the well choke valve exceeded the allowable pressure in the gathering system. If multiple well safety systems failed, there would be an unacceptable potential for large-scale loss of containment. A Quantitative Risk Assessment of the entire system was needed to determine if the existing overpressure protection system, as a whole, met corporate and regulatory requirements. Initially, the protection plan suggested additional shutdown hardware and increased testing frequency. Smith & Burgess was hired to review this system.

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Topics: Detailed Engineering, Overpressure Protection, Case Study, Regulatory Compliance, Quantitative Risk Assessment, QRA

Case Study: Flare Maintenance Operations

Posted by Dustin Smith, P.E. on Apr 17, 2017 5:08:00 PM

The Opportunity:

After a routine preventative maintenance inspection, a refinery found that a major flare header was in need of replacement. This header connected two large sections of the refinery, and the management feared that a majority of the facility would need to be shut down to safely replace the header. The site hired Smith & Burgess to perform a Flare Header QRA to determine the minimum amount of necessary shutdowns in order to safely perform the line replacement. The Flare Quantitative Risk Assessment used load probabilities to determine the likelihood of various events, should a power failure occur.

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Topics: Flare Mitigation, Flare Analysis, Flare Study, Case Study, Flare System, Refinery, Engineering Review, Flare Header, Flare Management, Flare Optimization, Engineering Standards, Quantitative Risk Assessment, QRA, Rate Increase

 Safety Knowledge Should be Share...

“It should not be necessary for each generation to rediscover the principles of process safety which the generation before discovered. We must learn from the experience of others rather than learn the hard way. We must pass on to the next generation a record of what we have learned.” - Jesse C. Ducommun, Safety Pioneer
 
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