Petrochemical industry losses

Fan Rating. Axial fans have the capabiUty to do work, ie, static pressure capabiUty, based on their diameter, tip speed, number of blades, and width of blades. A typical fan used in the petrochemical industry has four blades, operates neat 61 m/s tip speed, and can operate against 248.8 Pa (1 in. H2O). A typical performance curve is shown in Figure 11 where both total pressure and velocity pressure are shown, but not static pressure. However, total pressure minus velocity pressure equals static pressure. Velocity pressure is the work done just to collect the air in front of the fan inlet and propel it into the fan throat. No useflil work is done but work is expended. This is called a parasitic loss and must be accounted for when determining power requirements. Some manufacturers fan curves only show pressure capabiUty in terms of static pressure vs flow rate, ignoring the velocity pressure requirement. This can lead to grossly underestimating power requirements. 

Nevertheless, accidents and unintended chemical releases pose serious financial risks to the chemical and petrochemical industry. In 1984 there were five major accidents in the hydrocarbon-chemical industries, totaling an estimated loss of 268 million. Hundreds of lesser accidents occur yearly. The total annual cost to the industry of accidents and unintended chemical releases is difficult to quantify. It includes significant costs owing to interruption... 

Davenport (Ref 10) states Vapor cloud explosions have in recent years been the predominant cause of the largest losses in the chemical and petrochemical industry. Because of trends toward plants of larger capacity, higher pressures, higher temperatures and greater inventory holdup, these losses have been increasing both in frequency and severity ... 

As with losses in the refinery category, the number of losses in the petrochemical industry have also continued to increase over the last few years, with the exception of facilities located outside the United States. Outside the U.S., the number of losses in recent years has actually declined. Losses in recent years have been attributed to piping failures and management system failures. 

In the chemical and the petrochemical industries, heterogeneous catalysts are typically operated in a narrow range of reaction conditions. These reaction conditions are chosen so as to achieve an optimal feedstock conversion at minimal catalyst deactivation and are typically either constant over time or are slightly modified to compensate for feedstock conversion loss due to deactivation of the catalyst. 

It is also possible to prevent the loss of the light fractions of petroleum by application of rational systems of petroleum extraction, gas treatment, and petroleum stabilization before its subsequent transport and storage. It is necessary to understand that stabilization of petroleum in this case is the extraction of light hydrocarbons (which under normal conditions are gases) for further processing in the petrochemical industry. 

The production of para-xylene is of interest to the petrochemical industry because of its use as monomer in polyester production. In addition to Cg aromatic isomerization, there are a number of important routes to para-xylene including the alkylation of toluene with methanol and the disproportionation of toluene. The catalytic properties of the SAPO molecular sieves for toluene methylation reactions have been described(11). While both large and medium pore SAPO s were active for the alkylation reaction, the medium pore materials were distinguished by remarkably high selectivity for methylation reactions, with disproportionation of the toluene feed representing less than 2% of the total conversion. By comparison, large pore SAPO-5 had nearly 60% disproportionation selectivity and the zeolite reference LZ-105 had nearly 80% disproportionation selectivity. The very low disproportionation activity of the medium pore SAPO s, attributed to their mild acid character, resulted in reduced losses of toluene to benzene and increased xylene yields relative to LZ-105 and SAPO-5. 

Accidental fires interact with their environment, should this be pipework, equipment and structures in process plants in petrochemical industry, or facilities on offshore oil and gas installations. For plant design and risk assessment, cautious best estimates and uncertainty ranges are required for a number of combustion parameters. These include release rates, flame size and shape, heat output, thermal radiation to its environment, and the heating-up of structures, pipework and items of equipment. The estimate can result in the assessment of time to loss of functionality of these structures and pressurized equipment. 

Wu T-C, Chang S-H, Shu C-M, Chen C-T, Wang C-P (2011) Safety leadership and safety performance in petrochemical industries the mediating role of safety climate. J Loss Prev Process Ind 24(6) 716-721... 

In addition to this extensive theoretical program, a visit to the Sarnia Chemical Valley, the heart of the Canadian petroleum and petrochemical industry was planned. Three major refineries (Esso s, Shell s and Suncor s), a number of petrochemical plants (Nova s, Dow s, BASF s) and other chemical industries (AKZO, LINDE, etc.) constitute a unique concentration of chemical "hardware" which makes Sarnia the ideal location for a full one day trip during the Conference. Such concentration of chemical industrial sites creates the need for very stringent controls on emissions, losses and environmental issues which were discussed during the visit. The trip to Sarnia included a visit to Esso Petroleum Canada Refinery and Dow Chemical s Petrochemical Plant, followed by presentations at Esso s Sarnia Research Department on "Strategies on Air Quality Control". The closeness of CREC-UWO to a major petrochemical site and industrial research facilities created another major justification for the development of the NATO-ASI in such a strategic location as London, Ontario. 

For Meel et al. (2007), the use of advanced Bayesian prediction methods is more suitable due to the scarcity and censorship of accident data. Meel Seider (2006) and Meel et al. (2007) developed a Bayesian approach for the assessment of accident frequency in petrochemical industries in Europe. Marcoulaki et al. (2012) extended the Meel s model by including analysis on work time loss and unavailable due occupational accidents. 

---