Risk Assessments of Refinery Units Case Study

The Challenge

A large Canadian refinery was performing risk assessments to identify personnel, environmental, and operational hazards. This work was being done on a planned schedule with a different unit being reviewed annually. The challenge was to use Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) methodologies that provide an effective analysis appropriate to the unit to be studied and the potential hazards.

Our Approach

For the risk assessment of the refinery’s cooling water systems and acid gas/sulfur recovery systems, a top down fault tree analysis was used. The PHA of the HF Alkylation unit was done to meet the requirements of API RP-751. This required the use of the HAZOP methodology followed by consequence analysis of the identified high-risk release scenarios using SuperChems™. For other refinery units such as the Crude Tower, Hydrocracker, and BTX unit a combination of the HAZOP and What-if/Checklist methodology was utilized.

The Benefits

ioMosaic was able to tailor the PHA approach to the unit to be reviewed and met the refinery’s risk assessment goals at minimum cost to the refinery. The risk assessments reports will allow the refinery to easily revalidate the risk assessments in the future.

Learn More

Our mission is to help you protect your people, your plant, your stakeholder value and our planet. To learn more about how we can help you manage risk, call us at 1.844.ioMosaic.