Lithuanian Refinery Fire - Update

This appears to be related to this incident ==> <a href="http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/ap/2006/10/16/europe/EU_GEN_Lithuania_Refinery_Fire.php">http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/ap/2006/10/16/europe/EU_GEN\ _Lithuania_Refinery_Fire.php</a>

<a href="http://www.joiff.com/history.html">http://www.joiff.com/history.html</a>

<a href="http://www.pipingdesign.com/images/seta.jpg">http://www.pipingdesign.com/images/seta.jpg</a>
<a href="http://www.pipingdesign.com/images/setb_smaller.jpg">http://www.pipingdesign.com/images/setb_smaller.jpg</a>
<a href="http://www.pipingdesign.com/images/setc_smaller.jpg">http://www.pipingdesign.com/images/setc_smaller.jpg</a>

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Lithuanian Refinery Fire - Update

It was not a pump that was the leak source, it was the line on the bottom of the vacuum tower. The line had an internal erosion/corrosion problem that took many years to finally fail. The metals inspection program did not find the thinning pipe before the failure, and their is some speculation that the metallurgy was incorrect when installed.

The service is Very Hot for a refinery and it was in sour service, that combination should have made the operational metals inspection very thorough and more often than just any other pipe in the entire refinery........but it was not the thinning or the pipe should have been detectable years ago.

Confirmation has been sought and the major contributing factor that destroyed the entire unit was, the tower skirt did NOT have any FIRE PROOFING. Maybe we need to go back to the basics again, FIRE PROOFING, PROCESS UNIT EMERGENCY DEPRESSURIZATION SYSTEMS, and EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN SYSTEMS. This is the fifth major loss in the refining and petrochemical industry in the last 18 months involving piping failures where the average loss is around $400,000,000.

This means we are seeing a major shift away from heaters and pumps being the initiator of the majority of large losses.

<<setc smaller.jpg>> <<seta.jpg>> <<setb smaller.jpg>> Regards
Kevin D Westwood
JOIFF Secretary
BP International Ltd
Bld 'H' Floor 1, Chertsey Road,
Sunbury on Thames
TW16 7LN, UK Received on Fri Feb 02 20:01:00 2007