Marcel Wouters and Martijn van 't Wout
Despite corona completely on schedule
In order to demonstrably comply with new legislation and regulations concerning pressure equipment, a petrochemical company in Rotterdam-Botlek recently enlisted the help of KH Engineering and Smart AIS. Despite the corona issues, our services continue according to schedule. The project will be completed before the end of the year.
‘This concerns compliance with laws and regulations concerning the Pressure Equipment (Commodities Act) Decree' (WBDA),’ says project leader Marcel Wouters. ‘In 2016, new regulations were drawn up for this purpose, with which companies now have to comply . For this production location it means, among other things, that they had to map out the complete situation of approximately 15,000 pipes and 1,800 pieces of equipment. That job has been outsourced to KH Engineering and Smart AIS. Because we are already carrying out similar assignments for, among others, Shell Pernis, we were able to quickly get started for this customer as well.’
Duty of care or obligation to inspect?
‘When mapping the equipment,’ continues Wouters, ‘we initially base ourselves on the P&IDs (Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams) and available databases. Then we check whether the information is complete: is the correct diameter stated, the medium, the pressure and the temperature data? If information is missing, we supplement it. For the most part, we can do this ourselves, and partly we do this together with the customer. As soon as we have all the information, we process it in a software program we developed ourselves and which automatically results in a classification according to the WBDA. Piping and equipment can fall into two categories: duty of care, in which the asset owner himself takes care of the inspections for maintenance, or duty of inspection, in which an external, independent accredited party has to inspect.’
Demonstrable integrity
Next, Smart AIS comes into the picture. Business Unit Manager Martijn van 't Wout: ‘Smart AIS has the knowledge, skills and equipment to carry out all the necessary inspections. With this we provide various services with which we contribute to quality assurance and demonstrable integrity of our customers' installations. In this specific project, we conduct inspections and record the condition of the pipes and equipment, which are no longer fall under the duty of care category, but are now categorized to the duty of inspection.’
Assemble inspection packages
An inspection package consists of a colored P&ID and an “as-built” isometric drawing. ‘If necessary, we also make a “provisions” package for the scaffolder and insulation contractor. It states where scaffolding must be placed and if necessary where insulation should be removed.'
Visual and wall thickness study
‘Our inspectors then carry out a visual inspection on location. They record everything directly via our SACA (SAIS Asset Care Application) app on their tablet. Is there corrosion somewhere? Is the insulation not quite right? It all recorded. This is followed by wall thickness measurements in places where something has been detected or where you can expect wear. Think of bends or T-pieces with high pressure. We do this with ultrasonic testing. When the measurement is done, the app automatically checks whether it falls within the standards. In addition, we ensure that our measurements are reproducible, a requirement under the law. All documentation and new information ultimately results in a pipe inspection report (LIR). Together with the customer, we draw up a status document with which he can demonstrably comply with the new legislation and regulations.'
Lockdown
KH engineers are working on the first part of the project from three offices: Amsterdam, Schiedam and Antwerp. ‘When the corona crisis broke out, the lockdown in Belgium was implemented first and most severely,’ Wouters recalls. ‘The Netherlands followed shortly thereafter. We were able to move all work to working from home in a few days.’ For the second part of the project - in addition to from home – “regular” work is also carried out on location. ‘It is of course not quite regular,’ says Van 't Wout, ‘because we have to take into account the well-known 1.5 meters social distancing from each other. But because our client's regular office staff all work from home, there is no shortage of office space for our people, who have to continue working at the project location. Our daily progress meeting has been moved to a video meeting and for the rest we continue to work.’
No delay
In this way, there is no delay and at the end of this year the customer has an up-to-date and complete overview, with which he complies with the most recent laws and regulations.
more information
For more information please contact Marcel Wouters from our Process department or Business unit manager Martijn van 't Wout of our sister company Smart Asset Integrity Services.