We help our clients develop, implement and improve Process Safety Management (PSM) systems and Loss Prevention practices, right from the design stage, through the operating life and into the final downsizing and decommissioning phase of their assets.  

We help our clients identify and manage hazards, prepare for emergencies and crises, and train their people to develop a stronger loss prevention mindset.

When there is zero room for error, Fíréanta is the partner to help you step up to the next level of safety performance.

This client was seeking a step change in their process safety management performance, and utilised our significant expertise in that area to make fundamental improvements in the way they conducted day-to-day business.  This included;

• Development of key process safety management procedures, including Management of Change (MOC), Safety Critical Equipment Overrides and Incident Reporting & Investigation.  

• Reorientation of the Permit to Work (PtW) system, which had recently migrated to an online platform without a sufficiently rigorous change management process, which had resulted in a significant deterioration of PtW compliance and had increased the number of near misses associated with permitted work.  This involved a root-and-branch review of the PtW procedure and stewardship of the software changes which needed to be made in order to recover the lost PtW performance.

• Assistance with the development of emergency response plans from first principles, providing the framework for Pre-Incident Plans, Responder Competence Development and Emergency Scenario Simulation Auditing.

• Conduct sample quality control reviews of incident investigation reports (with particular emphasis on identification of latent causes and linking these to management system deficiencies) and management of change (MOC) documentation (with special attention placed on identification of unintended negative consequences of the change).

• Creation and roll-out of a company-wide Process Safety Performance Indicator (PSPI) dashboard aligned to API 754.

The developers of this new refinery in Turkey had the foresight to engage with their risk consultant during the very early stages of the site layout development, with the objective to minimize the overall damage potential from vapour cloud explosions (VCE) and tank farm fires.  The chosen site was not ideal as it was sloped (and this required terracing), was smaller than desired for a refinery of this scale, and was sandwiched in between two existing petrochemical sites.  Therefore layout optimisation would be critical to minimising the inherent property damage and business interruption risk for this asset during its lifecycle.

After development of an initial explosion and fire model based on the first draft site layout, a number of recommendations were made with respect to the location of the FCCU and Hydrocracker light ends processing areas, the location of two vacuum residue tanks (which had been initially placed at a high elevation adjacent to the Vacuum Distillation unit) and the arrangement of the Amine Regeneration unit.  Incorporating these changes resulted in a 29% reduction in the property damage estimated maximum loss (EML) due to VCE, and removed entirely a scenario where a tank rupture could cause vacuum residue to flow into a processing area.

This client had received the output report from a passive fire protection (PFP) study conducted by a third party, which had basically directed them to cover almost all structural steel, column skirts and vessel supports in concrete.  They reached out to us initially for assistance with prioritising the actions from this study, but - upon review of the report - we quickly established that the study itself had been inadequately performed and thus the recommendations inappropriate.

Vessel inventories and process conditions were incorrect, pool and jet fire hazards were modelled incorrectly, resulting in exaggerated scenarios with overblown consequences.  And lastly, no attention had been given to the fact that introducing PFP brought its own risks, chief among them the potential for corrosion under fireproofing (CUF).

We revised the study to bring it into line with API RP 2218 Fireproofing Practices in Petroleum and Petrochemical Processing Plants, collaborated with the client on risk assessments to determine go/no go for those identified locations which were 'marginal risk', and ensured that the under-fireproofing surfaces were prepared in accordance with API RP 583 Corrosion Under Insulation and Fireproofing.

During modernisation of its gas processing facilities this client required a number of occupied building risk assessments, both for existing buildings and for newly proposed structures.  These assessments were conducted in line with Bahrain Ministerial Orders relating to safety at work, plus NFPA 30 Flammable and Combustible Liquid Code and API RP 2001 Fire Protection in Refineries, and required modelling of vapour cloud explosion (VCE), jet fire, pool fire and toxic release scenarios.  As the facilities are surrounded by third-party owned pipelines and oil wells, cross-exposures associated with these hazard sources was also assessed.

A recent commission was to conduct a risk impact study for constructing a centralised chemical warehouse, including an extensive review of the relevant industry codes, standards and practices which should be complied with in order to design a best-in-class storage facility.   The output included a risk-based identification of the best location and building orientation, plus an optimised internal layout and segregation design which limited the need for sprinklers to the minimum possible area, with preference given to passive fire mitigation means.

A wide variety of process safety and loss prevention consulting projects were undertaken for this client over a seven-year engagement period while they developed from a primarily occupational safety-centric management system, to one which had process safety and asset integrity at its core.

Projects ranged from developing an emergency operating procedure (EOP) for loss of DCS view, to a benchmarking review of the water draw-off systems of all LPG storage spheres, to advising on the correct procedure for taking Debutaniser reboilers out of service without inadvertently creating overpressure or vacuum conditions, and more.  Each year we held a half-day Loss Prevention Seminar at the refinery to improve safety awareness and increase the visibility of process safety development at the site, accompanying the client on their journey to elite performance.

During a period of political instability in Sri Lanka, the combination of fuel shortages and a low position on the dispatch merit order meant that this 20-year old combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power station was operating a daily start-stop operation.  In addition, there was a pronounced seasonality pattern, with almost 17 weeks of downtime between May and September, and high variability in winter where monthly rates went from as low as 13 hours to as high as 548 hours!

Running a plant with a sporadic operating mode such as this creates a much higher potential for a process safety or mechanical breakdown incident, and this client was struggling to adapt their operating practices to this environment.  Proactive engagement with the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for the gas turbine and the two generators had ensured that operating and maintenance procedures were optimised for this type of start-stop regime, but the steam turbine, waste heat boiler and balance of plant were still being managed as if they were in continuous service.

We worked with the client to revise the start-up, shutdown, hot stand-by and cold stand-by practices, incorporating best practice methodologies and techniques derived from experience of similarly dispatched CCGT units elsewhere.  

This project involved provision of expert assistance with a risk assessment for continuing FCCU operations following the discovery of cracks in the FCCU reactor cyclones.  

The initial analysis focused entirely on the immediate implications, such as losses of FCC catalyst from the reactor-regenerator circuit (increased cost) and increased catalyst fines in the produced fuel oil (product quality issues).  However this assessment lacked a comprehensive view of the hazards introduced by this issue, nor did it consider the highly likely possibility that the cracking would worsen before the planned repair intervention, and thus the hazard level could dramatically increase.

Working with the client's experts, we developed a unit-wide risk assessment with a particular focus on erosion-corrosion potential in the heat exchangers and reboilers where FCCU Main Column bottoms was the heating medium, and within the slurry pump warm-up lines due to acceleration of the catalyst-laden fluid through restriction orifice plates.   We specified a suitable laboratory testing regime to track the catalyst level at various points of the slurry circuit and identified a handful of high-priority locations for pipe thickness monitoring.  This allowed the unit to safely make it through to the planned intervention 14 months later when the reactor cyclones were fully replaced.