Minimize Loss of Containment
Safeguard your refinery’s people, plant, and community
- Downstream Hydrocarbons
- Refining
- Oil refinery safety and operational excellence
- Refinery Loss of Containment
Safeguard your refinery’s people, plant, and community
Overfills, leaks, and corrosion are the largest cause of incidents in refineries. That’s why you need an effective safety management process with systems and procedures that prevent unwanted releases that may ignite and cause toxic impacts, local fires, or worse. With Emerson, you can integrate wireless and digital solutions into your operations — from tank overfill protection, flame arrestors, and corrosion monitoring to fire and gas detection — to minimize safety hazards associated with loss of containment.
Marcelo Carugo discusses a variety of ways plant managers can reduce risks and improve occupational safety, containment, process safety, and cybersecurity.
Storage tanks have many inherent risks. But, with a comprehensive program for maintaining tank integrity, operators can mitigate the risk of tank overfill, protect the product from impurities, prevent a flame event from propagating through the system, and access real-time indications of technical abnormalities. To maintain pressure control of the gas space, Emerson offers tank blanketing, vapor recovery regulators, tank vents, and flame arrestors. On the liquid side, Emerson offers a tank overfill protection system and a non-intrusive corrosion monitoring system.
When a refinery takes advantage of the increasing number of discounted opportunity crudes, assets are at risk for corrosion in unexpected places. In fact, corrosion may be the largest contributor to loss of containment and increased safety risk. The best and most reliable corrosion mitigation program takes into account industry recommended practices and standards and implements both intrusive and non-intrusive online monitoring solutions to deliver real-time data on wall thickness. It also prompts the repair or replacement of assets damaged by corrosion.
Fire and gas systems are designed to avoid catastrophic safety and environmental situations by detecting fires or unignited escapes of flammable or toxic fluids early to alert operators and initiate an automatic protective response. Emerson’s advanced, integrated flame and gas detectors are also designed to excel under the toughest conditions. For example, Rosemount™ Open Path Gas Detectors utilize electrochemical sensing technology to detect toxic gases, and infrared and catalytic-bead sensing technology for fast, accurate detection of flammable gases.
Detecting small hydrocarbon leakages and seepages evolving at a mere 0.005% leak rate in tanks, pipeline, pumps, valves, and connecting flanges is a challenge. Small leakages can cause contamination of soil and water bodies that sometimes culminates into catastrophic fire events, violating Occupational and Environmental regulations. To avoid this issue, refiners can connect the “Release Detection Cable” from API 1160 to WirelessHART transmitters, so the sensor can pinpoint the problem, before it becomes a threat.
