Sulfur Community

By Jeanne Rameau  

The old days -

How many of you have worked in Refineries?  Let me step back a moment and ask, how many of you have worked in refineries 30 years ago?  What has changed? Hmmm, 30 years ago some Refineries did not require Coveralls to work in the field, people smoked in the field, personal radios were few and far between, and most of your automated controls were you…yes, you physically moving a valve out in a unit. 

Fast Forward –

What’s a TWIC card?  TWIC stands for Transportation Worker Identification Credential.  http://twicinformation.tsa.dhs.gov.  TWIC was created out of the US PATRIOT ACT OF 2001 - http://freight.transportation.org/doc/water/twic.pdf.  Currently, US Refiners are requiring employees and contractors working in secure areas to have TWIC cards.   I would like to point out that I have my TWIC card, so I am not only eligible to work in Refineries, I could possibly check your bags at the airport as well. 

I just want to get my work done -

This is a phrase mentioned by just about all who enter through the gates of a Refinery.  Whether it’s a contractor, Operator, Engineer or Maintenance type.  There are Hazops, PTA JSA, LOPA, PHA, if you look at current Safety programs, every acronym known to mankind exists and they all have a different twist to them. Control of work systems has far reaching tentacles.  Currently, it’s very frustrating for folks to execute work.  They want to be safe.  But they want to get their work done.  How do you accomplish both.

Hazards and Risks –

Our Industry will always have hazards.  There is no getting around it.  You can design a state of the art system, throw lots of money at it, lots of people.  But hazards will always exist. Simply put, Hazard is the potential to cause injury or damage. Risk on the other hand, is the likelihood that the Hazard will cause an incident.  Hazards are caused by the following:

·         Human Error

·         Design

·         Mechanical/Power failure

·         Environmental conditions (such as weather)

·         External Influences

Where risk comes in - is how do I as human determine how to weigh a risk and minimize it as much as possible. What might seem risky to you may not be much of a risk to me. If you are a new engineer or operator and have never performed a particular task, it might be very very risky.  But an experienced senior engineer or operator might see very little risk or find it quite manageable.  Some risks are very black and white; some are very grey and subjective. 

Let’s look at an example:

I am using this case as an example because I have in the past worked a job similar to this situation. A  Contract field engineer was discussing with me a project he was working on in a refinery and was very frustrated with the situation.  It involved a natural gas TIE-IN in a Sulfur Plant.  He felt the TIE-IN could be executed with the unit running and following a Job/Safety protocol.    The Unit Engineer was new and didn’t have much experience.  The Operators involved were also new. The Operator’s rep for the project felt comfortable with it, but needed the buy in of the Unit Engineer, Operators and Safety, as it was their unit and they would have to be involved in the TIE-IN work.  The Unit Engineer felt to make the TIE IN, the Unit would have to be shut down (well that wasn’t going to happen outside a TAR). The newer operators were just following the lead of the new Engineer leaving the project in a stalemate.   So who is right? Both parties.

What I am getting at is this particular TIE-IN could be done with the unit running or shutdown.  Yes, if you shut the unit down…no problem (although the process of shutting down and starting up units has its own safety risks) but it could also be done safely while the unit is running.  This is where experience and thoroughly researching all aspects of the job can benefit the unit and the Refinery. 

Safety is a very fluid concept.  What will work in one situation, might not work in another.  We cannot simply write a Safety protocol and ASSUME it will fit in every situation. 

OK, HERE”S ANOTHER EXAMPLE:

Civil work was being done with a road being dug up to put in a fire water line.  Ecology blocks with cables connecting them between each of them, were placed around the excavation area so no one would fall in, with a hole watch to monitor contractors working in the ditch.  The safety person was adamant that the hole watch should be wearing a harness and fall arrest so he would not fall to the bottom of the ditch.  What the safety person did not understand was because of the depth of the ditch, the hole watch would end up at the bottom of the ditch anyway,   as the fall arrest would do no good at such a shallow depth.
The hole watch could have simply staged himself outside the ecology blocks while still maintaining communication and visual site of personnel in the ditch.   Meanwhile because of where the Safety Rep wanted the ecology blocks placed, a truck driver clipped one of the ecology blocks with the fender of his truck.

POINTS TO KEEP IN MIND

·         Use common sense

·         Look at each situation individually

·         Think it through

Jeanne@SulfurUnit.com

The International Maritime Organization, which oversees the shipping industry, will begin enforcing rules this July that mandate cleaner fuel to cut air pollution and acid rain.

Regulations call for reducing the sulfur in shipping fuel from 4.5 to 0.5 percent by 2020. Scientists project that this switch will cut sulfur-pollution-related premature deaths from 87,000 worldwide per year to 46,000. But the sulfate aerosols spewing from supertanker smokestacks also produce planet-cooling clouds called ship tracks which some say cools the planet by reflecting back solar heat.  The ship tracks form when water droplets coalesce around sulfate particles. These clouds, which are big enough to be seen from orbit, reflect sunlight back into space, preventing the equivalent of up to 40 percent of the warming caused by human-produced carbon dioxide. “The IMO has done a good job addressing air-quality issues,” says Daniel Lack, an atmospheric scientist at NOAA. “But there’s a climate impact that wasn’t necessarily considered.”

The full story is at Popular Science http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-01/smoke-water

Here’s an interesting commentary

 http://jer-skepticscorner.blogspot.com/2010/01/everyone-thinks-they-are-saving-planet.html

So is this eco-motivated change to clean fuels one of our strongest, if accidental, defenses against climate change?  Or did the oil lobbyists come up with a clever idea to throw doubt into the conscience of the general public.  I’ll let you form your own opinion.

-Paul Orlowski
Co-founder and Community Builder
SulfurUnit.com

 To survive with the new ULSD standard, the National Oilheat Research Alliance met in September to redefine itself in light of new environmental policy and change.  John Huber, the president says, “The oilheat industry views itself in a timeframe in which it needs to reinvent itself, what with legislation on climate change, global warming and carbon caps.”  Including 20 percent biodiesel may be just the long term solution.  The result of the Baltimore meeting was an industry commitment to reach 2 percent biodiesel saturation in the nation’s heating oil supply by July, stipulating to steadily increase it in the years to come, and significantly lowering the amount of sulfur in heating oil.

Lowering Sulfur

Incrementally raising the biodiesel component in heating oil is one important part of the oilheat industry’s new charge, but the other aspect is the drive to lower sulfur content. On fuel cleanliness and systems efficiency, the effect of reducing sulfur content in heating oil is nothing short of tremendous. “At 3,000 ppm, we’re putting a lot of SO2 in the air,” Burke says. Also, nearly all of the carcinogenic particulate matter (2.5 micron) strewn into the air from oilheat chimneys populating the Northeast and elsewhere is a result of sulfur content. Another issue is sulfuric acid production. “Sulfuric acid condenses at 200 degrees,” Hedden says. “One of the problems is that we have to keep the exhaust temperature so high at the top of the chimney [to prevent sulfuric acid from condensing], and there’s a cost to that,” meaning heat loss via the flue and the monetary and energy loss associated with it. “If we can get rid of sulfur, we can do some pretty creative things to lower the exhaust temperature of the exhaust gas.”

When the burner of an oil furnace starts, there is sulfur in the heat exchanger, which results in scaling. “Scale decreases efficiencies,” Hedden says. “ULSD won’t have that degradation of efficiencies, which is about 2 percent per year, and that would save money on maintenance and there’ll be a gain in efficiency.” The 15 ppm sulfur will not contribute to system degradation and therefore less fuel will be needed to do the same amount of heating.

Huber points out that sulfur is a real obstacle for equipment design. “With ULSD you can use lower-grade steel for components, for example,” he says. New oil systems such as wall-hung on-demand boilers, which are used in Europe and are so small they can be cleaned in a dishwasher, are not compatible with high sulfur fuel oil.

Here’s something to observe in the next month as the thermometer drops in the northeast, will it be possible to import enough 15 ppm fuel in quantities large enough to satisfy demand while staying in regulatory compliance?

Read more at
“http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=3937 ”

By Paul Orlowski

There’s an estimated 800 million cars on this earth and only 16 superships can emit as much sulfur. That’s according to Fred Pearce and environmental consultant to New Scientist and author of Confessions of an Eco Sinner.

Super-vessels use as much power as small power stations because they have massive engines that are as big as a small ship. The bunker fuel they burn is usually the cheapest, filthiest, high sulfur fuel left behind at the refinery. Fortunately laws prohibit the use of that fuel on land.

The International Maritime Organization rules allow the largest ships to emit as much as 5,000 tons of sulfur in a year – the same as 50 million typical cars, each emitting an average of 100 grams of sulfur a year.

So the next time I’m eating pineapple from Thailand, I may be thinking of how much sulfur was put in the air to get them here. Or when I reach for grapes from Chile in the winter, I might just decide to wait until they are in season locally.

-Paul Orlowski

Where I live between Seattle and Vancouver, not many vegetables grow in November.  We planted some red organic carrots late in August and I went out this November 14th weekend curious to see how they were doing.  I was surprised to find a few of them as big as my thumb and pretty tasty.

So how is this about Safety?

I got my safety training at the ARCO and then BP Cherry Point oil refinery.  The Safety Program was built around asking WYE - What’s Your Exposure.  I’m going to congratulate and thank Curt Brisky for his big success in starting the WYE program and Greg Rust the Safety Manager for supporting it.  That WYE question became so ingrained in us that we automatically asked it whenever we were prepping for a job. 

Whether you’re working the sulfur recovery unit, tailgas, sour water or pulling amine samples, the WYE question is always appropriate. 

Why are you doing this or that, WYE? What’s Your Exposure!  I know that is one of the reasons Cherry Point Refinery is consistently in the Solomon top quartile and very low on the OSHA safety ratings. 

They even gave us Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)–safety glasses, ear plugs and gloves–to take home.  Why not be safe 24 hours a day.

When I ran out to the garden the other day, I didn’t bring my safety glasses or leather gloves.  After all, I was just checking the carrots.  But while I was there I noticed several branches the wind had blown down and spied some new roses.  I picked up the tangle of branches, and did not get poked in the face or eye.  Then I pruned several roses to bring inside.  Not so lucky on the thorns, I have the scratches to prove it.

Why didn’t I grab the gloves and glasses on the way out, just in case. Was it for convenience?  I exited out from the deck and would have to have gone all-the-way-around-to-the-garage to get my PPE.  Or was it invincibility (or stupidity) theory?  “I’ll be alright just this once.”

At the refinery they give you a lot of grief for not wearing your PPE and rightly so.

But no one’s going to make me wear PPE at home, just like no one’s going to make me plant vegetables or flowers.  My quality of life, my hobbies, and yes my simple safety choices are up to me. 

WYE?

Why not be safe?

-Paul Orlowski

The Clean Air Act, which was last amended in 1990, requires EPA to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards (40 CFR part 50) for pollutants considered harmful to public health and the environment. The Clean Air Act established two types of national air quality standards. Primary standards set limits to protect public health, including the health of “sensitive” populations such as asthmatics, children, and the elderly. Secondary standards set limits to protect public welfare, including protection against decreased visibility, damage to animals, crops, vegetation, and buildings.

The EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS) has set National Ambient Air Quality Standards for six principal pollutants, which are called “criteria” pollutants.   See Sulfur at the bottom of the list below. Units of measure for the standards are parts per million (ppm) by volume, milligrams per cubic meter of air (mg/m³), and micrograms per cubic meter of air (µg/m³).

National Ambient Air Quality Standards

⁽¹⁾ Not to be exceeded more than once per year.

⁽²⁾ Final rule signed October 15, 2008.

⁽³⁾ Not to be exceeded more than once per year on average over 3 years.

⁽⁴⁾ To attain this standard, the 3-year average of the weighted annual mean PM2.5 concentrations from single or multiple community-oriented monitors must not exceed 15.0 µg/m3.

⁽⁵⁾ To attain this standard, the 3-year average of the 98th percentile of 24-hour concentrations at each population-oriented monitor within an area must not exceed 35 µg/m3 (effective December 17, 2006).

⁽⁶⁾ To attain this standard, the 3-year average of the fourth-highest daily maximum 8-hour average ozone concentrations measured at each monitor within an area over each year must not exceed 0.075 ppm.  (effective May 27, 2008)

⁽⁷⁾ (a) To attain this standard, the 3-year average of the fourth-highest daily maximum 8-hour average ozone concentrations measured at each monitor within an area over each year must not exceed 0.08 ppm.
    (b) The 1997 standard—and the implementation rules for that standard—will remain in place for implementation purposes as EPA undertakes rulemaking to address the transition from the 1997 ozone standard to the 2008 ozone standard.

⁽⁸⁾ (a) The standard is attained when the expected number of days per calendar year with maximum hourly average concentrations above 0.12 ppm is < 1.
    (b) As of June 15, 2005 EPA has revoked the 1-hour ozone standard in all areas except the fourteen 8-hour ozone nonattainment Early Action Compact (EAC) Areas.   For one of the 14 EAC areas (Denver, CO), the 1-hour standard was revoked on November 20, 2008.   For the other 13 EAC areas, the 1-hour standard was revoked on April 15, 2009.

-Paul Orlowski

The US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) asked Silver Eagle Refinery in Utah to stand down from operations until the “integrity and fitness” of company equipment can be verified and documented.

John Bresland, the chairman of OSHA said,

“Over the past several days, the CSB team has developed a number of serious concerns about the integrity of the piping and equipment at various locations in the plant. These concerns include a lack of required documentation and a lack of needed calculations of the fitness for service of various pieces of equipment.”

CSB was started in 1998–this is the first time they have asked a company to shut down operations.

Utah’s OSHA director Louis Silva agreed with the temporary shutdown.

Refinery officials said they had already begun the suspension of certain processing units before the CSB request and will suspend other refining processing units in an orderly and safe fashion.

“We have decided to do this because our top priority is the health and safety of our employees and the community,”

Silver Eagle Refining President Dave McSwain said.

“We believe this is the best decision given the circumstances. We are committed to being a responsible business in the community and being a contributor to an important industry sector,” he said. “We take our operating responsibility very seriously.”

According to the CSB preliminary report, the explosion occurred when a 10-inch pipe failed catastrophically, spewing hydrogen onto a nearby heater. The mid-morning explosion forced four families to leave damaged homes. The families were temporarily being housed with Silver Eagle support.

Local news video

November 16, 2009
-Paul Orlowski

SulfurUnit.com was established to build that Sulfur Community. 

Here’s our  story…There was an on-going uneasiness among the coker workers of the world about the risk of operating their unit.  Because of that, Coking.com was established in October 1998.  One month later, 6 people were killed at the Anacortes Refinery.  Suddenly our mission  became critical: Create a Coker Community for operators, mechanical and reliability technicians, maintenance and process engineers, supervisors, EPC’s and vendors to learn from each others’ expertise and improve productivity.  The goal:
“Together we can improve safety and reliability.”   

Read the posts about the Coking.com seminars, exhibition, training, discussion groups, forum, suppliers, contacts and more to learn about the huge success of this community.

Because the Coker Community has been so successful, we’ve been getting frequent requests to expand the model to other units, so this Sulfur Community was established. 

 The discussion forum, products & services suppliers, research and links are at www.SulfurUnit.com.  A conference, exhibition and training class starts on April 14, 2010 in Houston.  It also includes tail gas, amine and sour water. Working together as a Sulfur Community, we can minimize the unit risks, maintain reliability and keep up with environmental regulations! 

With current re-organizations, the resources that had once been available and plentiful to the technical and operational folks are more limited.  This Sulfur Community can help fill the void.

Paul Orlowski
Gary Pitman
Jeanne Rameau