Last year we saw the state of California implement their “PSM for Refineries” standard and now the state of Washington’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health is releasing draft language for a new chapter that will ONLY apply to Process Safety Management (PSM) for petrochemical refining facilities. This Process Safety Management rulemaking is in the […]
Here is some good ole sound advice on relief valves from our friends to the north (Technical Standards & Safety Authority). These are some good basic rules to follow, regardless of what country your pressure vessel operates.
Case #1 At 10:15 a.m. on February 12, 2015, an employee was working from the elevated basket of a manlift, installing sheetrock in an area of the job site where water piping was undergoing pneumatic testing, at 130 psi. At the same time, another contractor was performing a compressed air leak test. An 80-pound section
On June 29, 2005, Employee #1 was involved in the following the maintenance activities in the Chloropyridines Complex at the employer’s chemical manufacturing facility. Employee #1 was returning a reactor vessel to service. He was attempting to do a pressure and leak test using chlorine gas. The pipe was supposed to be pressure tested with
When we think about process safety, we can think of the analogy of a wild animal inside its cage… as long as the cage holds or we don’t open the door on the cage the wild animal is safely contained. Unfortunately, sometimes the cage was not designed to hold such a powerful animal and believe it
Most, unfortunately not all, process safety professionals will agree that doing a “line break” on an actual process pipe containing the PSM/RMP covered chemical (HHC/EHS) falls within 1910.119(f)(4) or 68.69(d). But when it comes to “process hoses”, there remain many application questions. For me, any time the “process” is opened I break the task down
At 8:30 p.m. on May 11, 2017, two employees had been welding a pipe assembly and installed it on a chlorine tank. Employee #1 opened a valve to transfer the liquid chlorine from a supply tank into the weigh tank. A flange fitting was not tightened and both employees were sprayed with liquid chlorine. Both
The CSB has released its case study titled “Key Lessons for Preventing Inadvertent Mixing During Chemical Unloading Operations,” which examines a mixture of incompatible materials at a Processing Plant that produces distilled spirits and specialty wheat proteins and starches in Atchison, Kansas on October 21, 2016. The mixture resulted in a chemical release containing chlorine
WOW, just wow, CF Industries has produced a world-class video from an incident they had back in 2015. You’re in a class on your own when you publically take an incident and turn it into a learning for others to benefit from. The incident involved a failure of a high-pressure flange on a hydrogen process. What they
On May 20, 2017, at 11:30 a.m. Employee #1, a refrigeration technician, and a coworker were performing pump down of a live ammonia refrigeration line to make the pipe available for replacement. The two (2) employees had checked the line on the roof with a blower and thinking it was clear, went to the engine
This month Koch Agronomic Services (KAS) announced they have developed a “nitrification inhibitor” for their anhydrous ammonia (NH3) fertilizer that will significantly improve nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) to increase crop output while minimizing environmental losses. This is great news for all of us; however, for those at the facilities where this new grade of NH3 is being
Ontario’s Engineering Data Sheet 4-04: Anhydrous Ammonia is an excellent source of reliable safety information for the design of and practice of safely handling anhydrous ammonia. It is another example of how we can use information from other agencies around the world to better design, build, operate and maintain processes handling/storing/processing highly hazardous chemicals.
