An Unprecedented Surprise Failure in a Refinery Hydrogen Generation Unit Jeoparadizing Process Safety and Operational Reliability

Oil and Gas business management started giving focused importance on process safety management in order to ensure sustained operation reliability without any surprise failure incident. Refinery Operation, especially lighter end hydrocarbon processing units are extremely safety critical which need high order reliability from material to maintenance to management perception on plant operation. Routine walk down and specific vigilance especially at hard to reach locations are essential to prevent any eventualities before it becomes too late to control. This paper will discuss about a surprise failure incident at Refinery Hydrogen Generation Unit (HGU) which made the entire refinery management in a state of “raised eyebrow” shock. The consequence of the failure is not only HGU shutdown but simultaneous outage of all critical units which needs hydrogen to operate leading to an unexpected and unaccounted business loss as well HSE impacts.