ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips Co. is a multination energy corporation. It is the world’s largest independent company focusing on the production of crude oil and natural gasses. The company was first founded in 1875 as the Continental Oil and Transportation Co.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConocoPhillips)
ConocoPhillips and COMAH
Foreword:
The ConocoPhillips Humber Refinery is a Major Accident Hazard site as defined under the COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazard) Regulations 1999. The Humber Refinery is one of approximately 1000 COMAH sites in UK. At the time of the incident the site was owned and operated by ConocoPhillips but changed in August 2002 following a merge with Phillips Petroleum.
The Humber refinery is located in South Killing …show more content…
Other places and buildings like suffered glass damages, doors, ceiling damages and displacement of brickwork.
3 employees working approximately 175metres away got thrown of their feet. Damages to nearby plants
Reason for the explosion and fire
The P4363 carried the-ethaniser (W431) to the Heat Exchanger (X452) in the SGP. The problem occurred down stream of and in close proximity to a water injection point which was not part of the original design. The pipework were recovered and send away for metallurgical examination.
The examination showed that the pipe elbow failed due to an ‘erosion-corrosion’ damage mechanism. This over time had reduced the wall thickness from 7-8mm to 0.3mm which led to the bursting of the pipe section and releasing the highly flammable gases into air.
The pipe thinning occurred due to the water injection position and the downstream flow path of the water from the injection point around the outside of the pipe elbow. It was also revealed that the un-corroded internal section of the pipe was coated with a passivation layer. However due to the water injection, the layer got washed away by time, leaving the protective coating open to attack by corrosive agents in the gas stream.
Inspection …show more content…
However, the refinery corrosion engineer carried out a review of the gas water wash systems that were in continuous use but did not inspect the injection point on the P4363 as it didn’t appear on the inspection departments’ database and therefore was believed not to be in service. As mentioned before, a request was made to keep the scaffold installed but because it was removed, no access to the injection point and pipe elbow was available and because due to no inspection could be done. This ends to a conclusion that the failed elbow had not been inspected at all in 20
ConocoPhillips Co. is a multination energy corporation. It is the world’s largest independent company focusing on the production of crude oil and natural gasses. The company was first founded in 1875 as the Continental Oil and Transportation Co.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConocoPhillips)
ConocoPhillips and COMAH
Foreword:
The ConocoPhillips Humber Refinery is a Major Accident Hazard site as defined under the COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazard) Regulations 1999. The Humber Refinery is one of approximately 1000 COMAH sites in UK. At the time of the incident the site was owned and operated by ConocoPhillips but changed in August 2002 following a merge with Phillips Petroleum.
The Humber refinery is located in South Killing …show more content…
Other places and buildings like suffered glass damages, doors, ceiling damages and displacement of brickwork.
3 employees working approximately 175metres away got thrown of their feet. Damages to nearby plants
Reason for the explosion and fire
The P4363 carried the-ethaniser (W431) to the Heat Exchanger (X452) in the SGP. The problem occurred down stream of and in close proximity to a water injection point which was not part of the original design. The pipework were recovered and send away for metallurgical examination.
The examination showed that the pipe elbow failed due to an ‘erosion-corrosion’ damage mechanism. This over time had reduced the wall thickness from 7-8mm to 0.3mm which led to the bursting of the pipe section and releasing the highly flammable gases into air.
The pipe thinning occurred due to the water injection position and the downstream flow path of the water from the injection point around the outside of the pipe elbow. It was also revealed that the un-corroded internal section of the pipe was coated with a passivation layer. However due to the water injection, the layer got washed away by time, leaving the protective coating open to attack by corrosive agents in the gas stream.
Inspection …show more content…
However, the refinery corrosion engineer carried out a review of the gas water wash systems that were in continuous use but did not inspect the injection point on the P4363 as it didn’t appear on the inspection departments’ database and therefore was believed not to be in service. As mentioned before, a request was made to keep the scaffold installed but because it was removed, no access to the injection point and pipe elbow was available and because due to no inspection could be done. This ends to a conclusion that the failed elbow had not been inspected at all in 20