Texmark Chemicals ushers in the Refinery of the Future
A spotlight on IoT-enabled predictive maintenance
In an industry with a long history of reluctance to change, Texmark Chemicals, with the help of Deloitte, embraced digital innovations such as the industrial Internet of Things (IoT), a new technology in the chemical industry, to drive profitability and create a repeatable use case in predictive maintenance IoT.
Approximately 200 lbs ammonia was released to atmosphere. The condenser safety valve activated due to ‘no cooling’ in the condenser while the ammonia compressor was operating. While restarting the plant after a power failure, the operator forgot to start the condenser circulating pump (which should be started before starting the compressor). The compressor was started without condenser cooling, and as a result, ammonia gas temperature began to rise, thus raising the gas pressure in the system. Eventually the gas pressure rose more than the safety valve setting, activating the safety valve which released the
ammonia to atmosphere.
The compressor’s high pressure safety cut off did not activate. The high pressure cut off is supposed to activate and shut off the compressor unit when the system senses a high pressure condition.
Source: British Columbia Safety Authority
To all my readers, wish you a very Happy and Healthy 2022! Play your part in avoiding LOPC's!
Tonight is the 37th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster. We still do
not seem to learn from Bhopal. The same mistakes that occurred at Bhopal
keep recurring in various incidents around the World. Production
pressures along with cost cutting measures take a toll on process
safety. Just like the National safety week in march, I mooted the idea of
having a National Process Safety Week every year on the anniversary of
Bhopal for all chemical industries in India. During this week, the root
causes of the Bhopal disaster and process incidents in individual
organisations can be discussed with all employees including top
management. The root causes are again given below: They are still
relevant today:
15 Power Plant Safety Tips
https://www.babcock.com/resources/learning-center/15-power-plant-safety-tips
I am giving a presentation in the First Jordanian International Chemical Process Safety Virtual Conference to be held on 30th and 31st March 2021. My topic is "Whats Going wrong with PSM - 36 years after Bhopal?" and is scheduled on 30th March,21 between 1500 to1515 hrs Jordan time (1730 to 1745 hrs IST) The registration to the conference is free and there are very good speakers lined up.
Register in this link http://www.jeaconf.org/JCPSC/ConferenceFees Registration is FREE
My fourth article "Understand Process Hazards to Safely manage Change" has been published in the January 2021 issue of the CEP magazine of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Read it after logging in in this link https://www.aiche.org/publications/cep
You have to be a member of AIChE to read it.
Dear Readers,
Thank you for being with me for the past 10 years since I started my blog.
1800 posts, 325000 views, about 800 incidents and many of my readers spreading the information from the posts through process safety one point lessons within their own organizations...I am still far from satisfied. My mission in life has been "Preventing another Bhopal" and let us not rest till we have achieved it. How can you help? By the following steps:
I end by quoting Robert Frost, "The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have miles to go before I sleep"
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| From L to R: Pankaj, Anshul, Me, Vishal and Tarun |
