Electrical safety information Oil and Refinery Equipment
Regulation is needed for any oil refinery including its equipment if it is to be effective and safe. Oil and gas exploration and drilling are one of the most hazardous regions of the oil industry. Beyond safety standards for workers, the monitoring of equipment, especially pumps and their valves, are necessary for oil refineries to run efficiently and safe.
Defective pumps and valves and other equipment are all subject of electrical safety to corrosion. The corrosion of these metal components found throughout the process lines can cause the fault of parts. The cost of corrosion in the petroleum industry has been estimated at 3.7 billion. Other environmentalists and analysts feel that the cost of ineffective parts has led to higher gasoline prices at the pump.
Refineries simply have to shut down when corrosion or equipment problems occur, costing refineries in the hundreds of thousands; hence passing the cost to repair onto the consumer and what they are paying at the pump.
How can the oil companies keep the public aware of on-going electrical safety policies and inspections? Interest groups are relying on newsletters and other media avenues to keep the public informed. One organization, the INIST-CNRS, has described the oil pump and corrosion wear as “A typical oil pump used in oil wells consists of a piston column, piston sleeve, and ball valve. The working environment in an oil field is harsh and unforgiving, and the piston column in the oil pump is very vulnerable to wear and corrosion. Hence, improving the wear and corrosion resistance of the piston, which is made of 45# steel, is critical to the efficiency and profitability of oil companies.
Even though ion implantation is an effective means to enhance the surface properties of the materials, the irregular shape and large dimension of the column make conventional beamline ion implantation very difficult. As the technique of plasma immersion ion implantation circumvents this line-of-sight restriction, it is a suitable technique to improve the wear and corrosion resistance of the components in an oil pump. A treatment process involving RF plasma nitriding and ion beam enhanced deposition (IBED) has been developed. The microhardness, mass loss due to wear, and coefficient of friction of the untreated and treated samples were measured. A salt fog test was also conducted to evaluate the resistance against rusting. The results indicate that the treatment improves the wear and corrosion resistance of the 45# steel samples significantly, and that the combined RF plasma nitriding and IBED process is more effective than a single RF plasma nitriding step.” The IBED process, or ion beam enhanced deposition process, hopes to improve the resistance of corrosion on metal surfaces such as oil pumps. One asset to the IBED process is that is can provide flexibility and does not need post-coating refinishing.
Refineries need to have licensed quality inspectors to inspect all equipment for corrosion and leaks. While the Environmental Protection Agency regulates how oil refineries should be run with processes and waste, it is up to the oil refinery itself to rely on the manufacturer of the electrical safety and pumping systems the refinery installs and utilizes. Environmentalists feel the need for more underground pumping equipment would not only help the air we breathe, but cause less corrosion on pumping equipment.
Another electrical safety issue are the electrical wiring devices that serve the pumping equipment. They too have wear and tear and the industry’s need for to minimize the possibility of unsafe interchangeability is vast. Again, while many governments or governmental agencies oversee such components, the need for more licensed inspectors will provide much improvement in the area of safety and usability. Further, manufacturers must be aware that every piece of equipment produced is universal in nature.
Software companies such as Iconics, located in Foxboro, Massachusetts provide an engineering data management package geared toward the mining industry to help with analyzing electrical safety and efficiency. The analyzing process helps to forecast errors in the system and can stop problems before they start through simulation or real time. The need for software-related fixes for the oil refineries, especially the smaller ones, could create much less down time and perhaps resolve corrosion or fault issues before they start.
Universal cataloging for refinery equipment is also necessary. Oil refineries, large or small, should be able to access an online equipment catalog that considers the power, wind, air, area size, and equipment for purchase. Catalogs should offer insight and ratings to manufacturer’s products on an unbiased basis, much as Consumer Reports does when they test and analyze the safety or performance of a product.
In order for our refineries to be safe and secure and run with quality electrical and pumping equipment, the industry itself must demand a universal and collaborative way to purchase with confidence, quality, and efficient products that will keep them running efficiently and with minimal fault or error.
