Asset Integrity & Reliability Services

BoilerRock is an independent consulting group that specializes in reliability and mechanical integrity improvements services to clients in the oil and gas industry.

Category: Corrosion

Invest & Learn- 2020

Posted by on in Asset Integrity, Condition Monitoring, Corrosion, Inspection, Learning, Maintenance, Process Safety Management, Reliability, TAR, TurnaroundsLeave a comment

2020 is has been quite a year so far and likely to end with continued change and uncertainty.  This will be a very different blog than normal – kind of like 2020!  As I travel to different sites doing mechanical integrity or TAR assessments, they are very similar in that everyone is extremely busy and very focused on the day to day work or approaching shutdown.  This is all excellent and required to meet the goals of the department, the plant, and the company.  However, we also must take the time to invest in yourself. 

We invest an extreme amount of time and effort into our jobs, but we must also take the time to focus on ourselves.  We need to invest in ourselves, our development, and our continuous learning.  In today’s internet world the ability to learn new things is right at our figure tips.  Having the company send you to a class or seminar is great but we do not need to wait for that opportunity, or it could be another 2020 when none of us are traveling anyway.  I spent a good portion of my free time in 2020 taking online training on several topics including- Cyclohexane production, Cathodic Protection refresher, and other industry related topic + a couple of personal items on Stock investing and the Golf swing.  My experience with online learning has been a very positive one and only expect this type of learning to continue to improve.  There are companies providing online learning of any number of process safety, corrosion, API standards and about any other industry related topic you would like to learn more about. 

We need to take a little time out of our busy weeks to invest in our own learning.  This is not easy with the demands of the job, but I’m very confident if you discuss your plan to spend a little time on the internet learning a new work skill with your Supervisor, they will likely be very supportive.

For most of us the Corporation is our paycheck, perceived security and in many cases the next promotion or pay increase.  However, we must always remember that if things get ugly financially with the corporation, you are on your own!  Please realize I am not saying that the corporation/company are a bad thing (I was able to enjoy a wonderful and fulfilling career with a good one), but we cannot ignore our own learning.  Have you ever worked with someone that was a know-it-all?  Pretty annoying in my opinion… I came across a quote recently that I would recommend for every organization, individual and company.  “We need to be a “Learn-it-all”, not a Know-it-all”

Actions to Take:

1)   What do I need to learn to improve?  At work/At home/My overall knowledge

2)   Schedule time for learning – small increments will work wonders, but make it happen!

3)   Be Positive and invest in yourself!

Corrosion- Do you know where to look?

Posted by on in Asset Integrity, Condition Monitoring, Corrosion, Inspection, Maintenance, Process Safety Management, Reliability, Risk Based Inspection- RBI, UncategorizedLeave a comment

When I travel to different sites reviewing mechanical integrity and inspection programs, the facilities normally have some type of corrosion monitoring program. These programs vary widely from mature programs that have been in place for years and my include a risk-based inspection (RBI) approach and several special emphasis projects as well, or the program may only do inspections and corrosion monitoring because OSHA requires them to have a program. Most of the organizations are somewhere in the middle and do their best to find issues before they potentially become major incidents, but the problem with many types of corrosion is that it’s difficult to find. So how can we improve our odds of finding the corrosion?

A corrosion review of your facility will help you understand what types of damages mechanisms/types of corrosion you have in each part of your plant. It will help your team understand what type of corrosion that they are looking for and the most likely places that type of corrosion will occur. Additionally, with the right team you will also know the best inspection techniques to use to find the corrosion. Without a corrosion study, you may have thousands of corrosion monitoring locations that your organization is managing but are they doing you any good? If you have a damage mechanism that is a localized corrosion mechanism and you are simply doing spot ultrasonic testing (UT) on that equipment, your likelihood of finding the corrosion prior to a leak is extremely low. Spot UT will help you understand your general corrosion that might be occurring, but if you have a localized or cracking corrosion mechanism you are wasting your time and money. The corrosion review will make you smarter on Where and How to look for the potential corrosion issues and improve your corrosion monitoring program immensely.

How do I complete a corrosion review for my plant? The American Petroleum Institute (API) has published a document API-970 that will give you an excellent road map to completing a corrosion study and developing corrosion control documents for your organization. The main requirement for completing a good corrosion review is to have the proper cross-functional team available to complete the study. Key team members must include:

• Corrosion Engineer familiar with the process. This will likely be an outside contractor as most companies have limited corrosion specialist and if they do, they are normally extremely busy.
• Process Engineer familiar with the facility being reviewed.
• Inspection
• Operations
• Maintenance
• Engineering

The management of a corrosion monitoring program can be very challenging simply due to the large volume of data that being generated and can be difficult to ‘see the forest through the trees’ sometimes. With a better understanding of the corrosion types likely to occur in your plant, your ability to focus your efforts in the right places will be very beneficial.

Actions to Take:
1) Has our plant completed a corrosion study?
YES,
a. Find the study and review it personally and with your team.
b. Have the recommendations from the study been implemented into your plant’s corrosion monitoring program?
NO,
c. Obtain an estimate for completing a corrosion study and weigh the benefits, risks and value to your plant.
d. Ask the question- Do we know where to look for corrosion in our plant?