Application and Optimization of Quantitative RBI on Equipment of Station Yard

The loss of accident increases while the influence of social deteriorates because of the maximization and complication of equipment in petrochemical industry. Station yard, as junction of the oil field gathering process, is also the high risk area. Developing optimization risk management of equipment in station yard has function of some significance in guaranteeing process smoothly of exploration and production.

In order to reduce the risk and loss of accident, the traditional method which was based on single inspection frequency and measurement had to be modified to manage safety, environmental and business-interruption risk in an integrated, cost-effective manner. Under these demand, the Risk-Based inspection (RBI) was presented and widely prevailed in petrochemical enterprises of Europe and America. Designed to achieve compatibility of safety and economy, RBI, in accordance with inspection supporting code and technical supporting code, can identify risk of equipment and reduce them by offering proper inspection activities to allow more effective use of the inspection resources and finally achieve reliability of equipment using optimum inspection costs.

The basic theory and its procedure of RBI technology are introduced in detail. Analyzing current safety management of equipment in station yard, aged equipment, inflammable and explosive material, complicated deterioration mechanism, under-developed monitoring and inspection technology as well as incomplete risk analysis and integrity management are main issue. Quantitative RBI on equipment of a station yard starts at inspection data collection including information of design, manufacture, process parameters and history. Followed by identification and assessment of damage mechanism and failure modes, such as thinning, corrosion, operational error and process upset, likelihood and consequence of failure, equipment risk is evaluated with the help of Orbit-onshore (DNV) software. According to RBI results, risk level is established and prioritized for each piece of equipment by criticality matrix so that equipment rank helps defying critical equipment which would be inspected thoroughly. Eventually, optimum inspection items are set up and countermeasures against risk are suggested among equipment in station yard from RBI.

In this paper, an appropriate inspection program for this station yard is designed for equipment fallen down medium high risk zone. Meantime, numbers of proper counter measures are proposed through RBI assessment to control the frequency of shutdown, maintain higher reliability and extend inspection frequency by assigning resources of inspection and maintenance.