Oil & gas operating units rely on many service companies for its safe daily operations. Activities execute by these vendors include both menial & complex tasks. Outsourcing jobs to contractors is a common practice as it is not feasible for a company to do everything by itself. As vendors have become an integral part of company operations vendor capability assessment is essential to ensure company will receive the required quality for services that they pay for.

As an example pipeline reliability is essential for oil companies to effectively transport their products. Pigging operations typically outsourced to a specialized service company is critical to pipeline integrity management. The purchase will certainly want to have the right pigging contractor selected for pigging jobs as pipelines are expensive & production critical assets.

Yard inspection should be part of tools in vendor selection process. By walking around their yard, we can feel how reliable they are in delivering tasks and spot things otherwise invisible without the visit. Documents detailing safety & quality management, work processes and staff training do not readily reflect on ground activities. It has to be confirmed by site visit.

I have visited a workshop with dirt flooring assembling parts sensitive to dust contamination. Obviously, this is not acceptable as airborne dust from dirt floor can easily affect the quality of parts being assembled. Subsequently, plant reliability will be undermined when bad quality parts got installed and commissioned.  Workshop floor is not about aesthetic only it promotes both safer & cleaner work environment. Furthermore, good workshop floor can prevent slip & fall hazards, spills can be properly cleaned. These are factors contribute to quality end products.

It is important that a service company is in good financial position. We do not want the selected contractor to be running out of money in the middle of job execution and we have to find another contractor to replace them. Typically, having to mobilize a new contractor to replace an existing contractor is not a very good idea. During the transition period as personnel are trying to settle in, work quality, delay & miscommunication tend to happen For a small project, it might be better for company to retain the field personnel of the existing financially trouble contractor and finance the entire project until completion. This should eliminate risk associate with an introduction of new set of workers on site have as mentioned above.

A vendor audit is not about fault findings. Its about assisting your company to make informed decisions pertaining to contractor selection. This is essential as their work will have a bearing on your final products. In oil & gas, service companies provide solution necessary for the complex daily operations. Contractors are on location performing works and becoming company liability at the same time.

Live below water is an important source of protein for millions of people. Coral is an integral part of the marine biodiversity that we inherited from our ancestors and hopefully we will pass it along to future generations. There are claims that coral is under serious threat and at risk of becoming extinct. These claim are certainly alarming as it will have a serious impact on the livelihood of millions of people. Various human activities contribute to coral deterioration. One area that we will be looking at is fishing.

Fishing activity is aplenty in coastal areas and has been the main source of income for coastal community for generations. As such, fishing is essential to their socioeconomic and identity. As over-fishing can deplete certain coral species. It is therefore necessary to curb over-fishing to safeguard these coral species. One measure to stop over-fishing is to put a limit on how much fish people can catch. By restricting fisherman activity will most likely reduce their income and it is necessary to help fisherman to offset their loss of income as a result of the limit impose on fishing activity. As such, help is required to help fisherman to generate another sources of income.

If over-fishing is not good, illegal fishing is more sinister. Illegal fishing employs fishing methods to haul the most fish out of the water with no regard for the suitability of the fishing gear like nets and traps that can damage fish habitats. Certain nets will remove too much fish from water disturbing the marine ecosystem. Another method hazardous to coral is fish bombing. Not only this bombing is destructive to the coral reef, there are reported cases of fatality associated with bombing. Stricter controls & drastic actions such as sinking these illegal fishing boats are necessary to stop illegal fishing.

The success of managing fishing issues involves coordination various stakeholders and this can be challenging. Also, patrolling vast open sea is not easy and resource intensive.

You who believe, fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you,  so that you may be mindful of God.

                                                                                                                     Al Baqarah 183

I wish everyone celebrating a blessed & peaceful Ramadan.

Managing small projects can be hectic. As small projects have shorter time completion and the need to constantly moving from one thing to the other can be tiring. Brownfield refers to projects on the existing facilities. Brownfield projects are not necessarily small. As an example, rejuvenation of an existing facilities can be big and involving multiple contracts & plenty of manpower. On the other hand, greenfield refers to new development projects. One difference between managing brownfield & greenfield is the issuance of PTW (permit to work) during project execution. The project team is directly responsible to manage PTW for greenfield projects whereby the member of unit operation team will control PTW for brownfield project activities.

In an existing oil & gas operating units, there are plenty of small projects. Obviously, small projects & modifications with low effort & high impact gets prioritized as it can enhance the efficiency & productivity of operating units. Project execution in live hydrocarbon processing plant is challenging due to potential hazards arising from flammability inherent in hydrocarbons. HAC (Hazardous Area Classification) defines an operating area in terms of the likelihood of explosion to occur and measures are taken to ensure the safety of people working in hazardous zones. Hot work activities such as oxy cutting & welding produce flames & sparks which are the potential source of ignition and explosion can happen very very fast with  catastrophic results. As such, managing hot work is crucial to both people safety and plant integrity.  There are many high profile fire & explosion incidents on offshore & onshore installations resulting in loss of lives, serious damage to property & environment.

A small project such as cutting into a steel pipe to install a valve is a small & simple project . If this small project is carried out in live plant efforts to safeguard the facilities from fire & explosion hazards are essential. The project manager has to ensure practices & procedures necessary to the effective management of fire hazards are in place and properly communicated to all parties involve in the project execution. Fire & gas hazards cannot be taken lightly when executing project activity in hydrocarbon environment.

Small projects have to be managed with focus & priority to ensure people safety & integrity of the facilities.  If the potential hazards are not properly addressed the execution can go horribly wrong.  It is important to do what matters to ensure small projects are done in safe manner.

Project rework is messy. It delays the mechanical completion, wasting time & resources, bickering among team members and many other nuisances. In short, project rework is counterproductive.

Front end engineering is an activity to produce specifications for a project. Selecting the concept is part of the front end activity. The quality of thinking & planning during the front end will influence the subsequent progress of a project. Work done during the front end will be used as the basis for design of a project. Design, procurement & construction of a project will be based on the project specifications produced by the front end activity. Front end activity is primarily on paper. Production cannot be realized until field mechanical completion. As such, there is a tendency to rush through front end to quickly get into the project execution phase. It shows time and again sloppy work during front end leads to badly executed projects.

It should be noted that front end engineering is not for major projects only. The front end activity for major projects should be more involve than minor projects. However, this does not necessarily mean that when it comes to minor projects we just pay lip service to front end engineering. Minor projects have its economic significance to business and carry with it certain execution risks. Therefore, spending time, money and effort on the front end activity for minor projects is worthwhile.

Safety and health is about keeping people safe. Facilities are designed with safety in mind. Hazards are identified & eliminated. Work processes & controls are in place. All these activities are to prevent harm & injury to people arising from work activity. Daily plant operations are churning out plenty of safety related numbers. To track & measure these safety numbers are an important part of managing safety. This safety number can be neatly summarized in pyramid format. The top of pyramid represents serious & major incidents such as fatality while the bigger numbers residing in the base of pyramid covers minor incidents like near misses & unsafe acts. Small incidents left unattended could lead to catastrophic incidents. As such, it is imperative to eliminate minor incidents as preventive measures.

The inclusion of journey management plan as one of the components in safety management by many oil & gas companies is wise due to road crash statistics is alarming. Journey management plan should raise awareness of the dangers of travelling among employees. This is necessary as people driving back & forth to work everyday. Business travel & leisure expose people to road hazards. Defensive driving is one aspect of journey management plan that could save lives. Knowing your car conditions & good driving habits are some basics of defensive driving. Fatigue is hazardous to driving. Drivers sleeping at the wheel of a moving vehicle is very dangerous. It takes few seconds for a vehicle to swerve into something.

Safe work place is a win win situation for both employers & employees. Living injury free everyday is a boon. As the saying goes health is wealth.

Patterns recognition plays a very important roles in our lives. We spot patterns to make sense of something that we do. Patterns can quickly tells us if something is right or wrong and this is really useful. From the patterns, we try to forecast the next probable outcomes. In stock markets, charts are used to trade stocks and spotting chart patterns is an integral part of the process. Patters recognition is based on the assumption that history tend to repeat itself. Do patterns keep reappearing and producing the same outcome? I am not sure about the stock market but in other areas that I am more familiar such as plant engineering I can see that certain patterns keep producing the same outcomes and this really comes in handy to plant people.

In oil and gas facilities, engineers & technicians monitor process conditions everyday. Looking at these process trends day in day out, they develop the knack for what is right & wrong with the process. This ability to spot patterns is really useful as it allows them to quickly identify process instabilities & upsets without much analysis. Swift actions can then be taken that could prevent things from getting worse. Apart from the process trends display on screens, plant operators have the feel of what is right & wrong when they walk around the plant. This feel comes from patterns that process equipment have when they are running fine or otherwise. By recognizing these patterns, operators can look for telltale signs of process equipment performance. These signals can be further verified by various field measurement & test techniques to ascertain the problems. Patterns recognition enables operators to quickly identify knotty plant problems with remarkable insights and this saves time in troubleshooting.

Patterns recognition in day to day plant operations are consistent as physical properties of processes behave according to physical laws & keep behaving the same if the governing conditions remain the same. On the other hand, stimulus and response in humans is unlike inanimate objects. Human behavior is a lot more involved and I shall leave the nitty gritty of human psychology to respective subject matter experts.

Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world is the famous phrase attributed to Albert Einstein. The effect of compound interest is benign in the beginning. As the time goes the effect starts to get significant and the exponential growth that it will produce is amazing. Its is therefore imperative to have the compound interest working for us rather than against us. For example, the initial money of 100 at 5% annual growth will amount to around 128 in 5 years. This means we have more money in our pocket. However, if the initial amount is money that we owe someone then the growth over a period of time will be money out of our pocket which is often unpleasant and hopefully not damaging. Rule of 72 gives a quick estimate of the doubling effect. By dividing 72 by the annual interest, we will get the estimated time the initial amount will double. In the previous example, by dividing 72 by 5 (annual interest) gives approximately 14 years. This 14 years is the time it takes for the initial amount to double. As we can see, the bigger the denominator the faster the doubling time will be. If the annual interest equals 72, it takes just one year to double. When the annual interest surpasses 72 the doubling time will be reduced to less than one year.

This doubling time has wide ranging applications to estimate growth of various units of quantity and it is not necessarily about money only. Doubling time is used to estimate growth of cancer in patients, population growth of nations and extinction of endangered species. Radioisotope half life is doubling time in reverse. This property gives scientists tools to study fossils of rocks & organisms and enables them to date the origin of the species from many many years ago.

Evaluation of maintenance costs on machinery is essential. In fact, this should dictate how we should approach our maintenance on that particular piece of machinery. If we are spending too much money on maintaining a machine perhaps it is cheaper & wiser to run that machine to failure. Probably, this will save money in the long run. How much is spent as a percentage of part replacement indicates the ratio of money spent to maintain against buying new one. This fraction of cost maintaining a machine will grow over long time. Suppose a new machine cost 20,000 to set up and maintaining that machine will cost 1000 annually. This translate into 5% of the replacement value if we are to scrap the machine and get a new one. At 5% annual spending, it takes approximately 14 years (72/5) to get the initial value to buy the machine. If we spend 10% annually, time it takes to get the cost to replace the machine is around 7 years (72/10). Obviously, this calculation is an oversimplification. However, it should give us some perspective on our maintenance approach.

As the name suggests, start & stop buttons are to start & stop a centrifugal pump. The color scheme for these buttons is green for start & red for stop taking a clue perhaps from traffic light color coding which is universally recognized. Start & stop buttons are installed in the field typically next to the pump and not everybody is allowed to push start & stop buttons as they wish.

In the event things go horribly wrong, a centrifugal pump can be killed off by hitting the red button. Power supply to motor will be cut off and pump will come to a complete stop. However, this does not necessarily mean a pump can only be energized on location. Remote start & stop of a centrifugal pump is possible.  Start & stop button is part of plant control systems designed to safe guard plant integrity. Interlocks and trip systems are common for oil & gas processing facilities. It is designed and well thought off to ensure that certain response will be taken in the event of specific failure.

Unlike positive displacement pump, centrifugal pump typically does not need a relief valve. Relief valve is a mechanical device installed to protect the system against the damage from excessive pressure. A relief valve will be triggered at certain set pressure to prevent pipe or vessel from rupture due to pressure exceeding its designed values.

All these layers of protection either electronic or mechanical provide the necessary line of defense for safe & reliable plant operations.  In complex oil & gas processing plants, there is no way humans can reliably detect all the abnormalities all the times regardless how vigilance they are. This issue of human reliability is addressed by built in these safety features into the systems. Plant operators need all these bells & whistles to help them in day to day operations.

Ability to anticipate type of problems in centrifugal pump is essential to prevent surprises in day to day operations. If we know problems in advance, repair jobs can be planned accordingly. Manpower, parts & special tools can be properly provisioned. Production window can be adjusted to suit the repair. Experience shows planned work gives better result than unplanned activity. Reactive maintenance tends to be counter productive and should be kept to the minimum.

Vibration is external signals that can assist plant people in troubleshooting effort. Centrifugal pump will send out complex vibration signals that can be tuned into frequency. By determining the frequency at which the vibration occurs, mechanical or hydraulic problems can be predicted. Vibration diagnostic chart shows nature of faults and its associated frequency. For example, 1 x rpm is associated with rotating members unbalance and misalignment is usually 1 x rpm & often 2 x rpm. Misalignment can sometimes occur at 3 and 4 x rpm. By using data from vibration analysis together with plant experience, we should have a better chance of detecting pump problems.

A case in point, an impeller of an overhung centrifugal fan (not pump) has to be balanced frequently. There are times when the balancing has be carried out twice a week. The balancing technicians has to camp near this fan to attend to unusual balancing requirements. In this case, the predictive capability enable by online vibration monitoring has no use – the root cause of the frequent imbalance has to be understood and solved first. Vibration analysis certainly helps and condition monitoring is an essential program for plant reliability. However, the vibration monitoring is not an end in itself. Good practices in other areas such as design and operations are necessary to achieve desired plant reliability.