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STORAGE TERMINALS
Speaking in late May, Leake said: “It might be difficult to meet that deadline if engineering changes are required.” Operators might be able to get an extension from the Captain of the Port but there will need to be a compelling reason and some progress will have to be shown to have been made. Leake highlighted some issues likely to
cause snags during an operational review, such as the setting of pressure relief valves, safety valves on flares, minor changes to equipment since installation that has not been added to drawings, and shutdown logs – these must be kept for three years. There was an interested audience for a
presentation by Manny Ehrlich, member of the Chemical Safety Board (CSB), and Earl Crochet, business development director at Kinder Morgan Terminals, on the implications of CSB’s investigation report into the 2009 explosion at the Caribbean Petroleum (Capeco) oil terminal in Puerto Rico. The speakers described the incident and its aftermath, which included pollution of storm water channels, creeks and wetlands by contaminated runoff. Capeco was fined $8.2m by EPA and shortly afterwards was declared bankrupt. The presenters noted that there were normally only three people staffing the tank farm, with one dedicated to the wastewater treatment unit. Fuel transfer operations and tank gauging were normally conducted manually under instruction from the planning department. As usual, the overfilling of the tank that
led to the explosion came about as a result of a combination of factors, not least a lack of preventative maintenance, financial pressure to get operations completed within a specified time frame, a lack of additional layers of protection, and human factor deficiencies. Perhaps not surprisingly, there had been 15 overfills and spills at the site between 1992 and 1999 and three since 2005. The presenters ran through the deficiencies found during the CSB investigation and Ehrlich
WITH 340 EXHIBITORS PACKING THE HALL, THERE WAS SOMETHING OF INTEREST FOR EVERYONE VISITING THE ILTA TRADE SHOW
said that, in his opinion, CSB’s report did not call for further regulation. “The rules are in place – they just need to be followed,” he said. In fact, the CSB report did make recommendations to both EPA and OSHA for strengthening oversight of terminal operations, as well as to the American Petroleum Institute, International Code Council and other bodies. Crochet was somewhat more critical.
CSB’s report, he said, “missed the boat”. Its recommendations will not help to prevent another similar incident in the future. “CSB did a real good job of investigating but its proposed solutions won’t solve the problems,” he said, pointing out that Capeco’s site was not being run in accordance with the existing standards. In particular, Crochet threw doubt on the
value of risk assessments, which nowadays form the basis of safety management in all industrial applications. These can be overly subjective, he said, and lack any sense of repeatability.
NEW FACES There was plenty more of interest during the conference sessions, which HCB will follow up on in future issues. Back in Houston, it was
time to head downstairs into the exhibition hall and see what was attracting attention – other than the local cheerleaders working as hospitality girls one on booth, which shall remain nameless. The 2016 trade show featured some
new names offering a range of products and services. And despite the increasingly hi-tech nature of the business, one popular stand was offering an extraordinarily lo-tech solution to a site safety problem. The SimOps Board from Vasin Sign Solutions is a simple magnetic dry-erase board featuring a satellite image of the user’s facility, with each element of the facility named. This allows managers to visually identify any potential conflicts when multiple projects are scheduled at the same time. This particular product has been available to the terminalling sector since 2008 but this was the first time that Vasin had exhibited. Another interesting newbie was
Netherlocks Safety Systems, which has developed a valve interlock solution that provide a predefined operating sequence during relief valve switch-overs, pigging and pump start-ups. It also has a very clear valve position indicator (something that could have come in useful at the Copeco terminal) and the Power Wrench portable valve actuator. HCB was also interested to meet Vapor
Point, whose VaporLock system, originally designed to control benzene emissions through a chemical interaction, can now be configured to meet a variety of vapours and operating conditions. United Electronic Controls was also in Houston to show its range of industrial instrumentation, including its new wirelessHART gas detector, a battery-powered unit that can detect toxic and combustible gases. With 340 exhibitors at the show, we cannot
hope to bring news of all the products and services on display. Anyone interested in the market should plan now to attend the 2017 event, which will take place from 12 to 14 June. The conference will take place at the new Marriott Marquis, located at the opposite end of the George R Brown Convention Center to the Hilton of the Americas. Full information can be found at
www.ilta.org. HCB
HCB MONTHLY | SEPTEMBER 2016
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