FIRE & ELECTRICAL SAFETY
TAKE THE HEAT OFF
Ineffective management of combustible materials in a high risk environment presents numerous health and safety risks with significant consequences. Here, Allan Ralston, Operations Director at Safehouse, explains how to avoid costly mistakes when working with heat in hazardous areas.
Using ‘hot’ tools to carry out cutting, soldering or welding in a hazardous area increases the risk of fire, or even worse, an explosion. Over the past two decades in the US, 60 deaths can be attributed to hot maintenance work within petroleum related industries.
In 2012, an incident at the Houston- based Black Elk Energy’s West Delta 32 production platform resulted in a major fire at the facility.
It was
suggested that the use of a cutting torch ignited flammable vapours which created an explosion in connected oil tanks, resulting in the death of one worker and causing several others to be critically injured.
In 2014, the Shoko Maru, a Japanese oil tanker, exploded off the south- west coast of Japan. At the time, reports indicated that a crew member was using a grinder to remove paint coating on board the ship. The grinder is likely to have contributed to the ignition of gases present in the unstable environment and created the blast, injuring all on board.
Sparks and molten material created as a by-product from ’hot‘ tools can be dispersed up to 35ft from where work is taking place. In the oil and gas industry, these risks are significantly magnified due to the frequent presence
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of dangerous gases and other combustibles. The addition of heat to such an unstable environment creates considerable risk for both those who are conducting the maintenance work and those in close vicinity.
In an attempt to avoid the associated risks of conducting hot work, essential maintenance work is often postponed which can be detrimental to the safety of the work force and the integrity of the asset. In order to safely conduct works, often the only option is for the site to be completely or partially shut- down, eradicating the threat of fire or an explosion. Shutdowns can cause many millions of pounds of lost revenue and have significant impact on production targets. Yet delaying maintenance directly impacts on the efficiency of the asset, and has longer term cost implications and safety risks should the issue not be addressed. Elevated costs associated with shutdowns lead many oil and gas companies to search for alternative solutions.
To ensure the safety of those conducting the maintenance work, it is important to mitigate the associated risks as much as possible when conducting necessary hot work on a ’live’ asset. Innovative solutions have been developed to ensure safety is
preserved when carrying out essential maintenance work in a hazardous environment, such as habitats. Habitats are pressurised modular flexible enclosures with integral monitoring and control systems which have been developed to create a safe working environment for personnel to conduct maintenance work.
The removal of heat from the equation significantly reduces the present risks. Low heat power tools are another of the most effective alternative solutions to a site shutdown. Due to the low heat generated by the tools, no hot work permit is required and they operate well within the recommended temperature limits set by EU guidelines. This eradicates the risk of ignition when removing coatings, weld seam and grinding. The design of the tools and the associated burrs and disks creates better heat dissipation, while the lower RPM of the attachments means that the tools never reach temperatures exceeding 135 C°. Low heat tools offer an alternative to a shutdown, greatly extending production time, increasing asset utilisation, and most importantly, ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the workforce.
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