Guidance of Equipment Risk Management With RBI Techniques

The West Pacific Petrochemical Company Limited, Dalian is the first enterprise that adopts risk-based inspection (RBI) technology in the oil refinery plants in China, the application of RBI technology plays a positive role in guaranteeing long-cycle operation of the plant. With the continuous deepening of degree of understanding of API 581 standard and continuous enriching of experience with use of RBI software, by tracing the risks, there are three major factors that affect the risk of equipment or component, i.e. risk consequence, failure likelihood and management system, which are taken as the direction of efforts for guiding the implementation of equipment risk management measures. If there are litigation measures in the release consequence (sprinkler system or passive litigation technology) that can reduce continuous release rate and release time, then the release consequence of equipment can be reduced; if inspection techniques are adopted with respect to corrosion failure mechanisms or the proportion of inspection is increased in the failure likelihood, then the failure likelihood can be reduced effectively; and other measures such as analyzing the problems listed in each item of management system assessment and taking measures to improve management level and thus increase scores of management system by comparing the difference between the management of the enterprise itself and those listed in the standard. By implementing above measures, the ability of equipment risk management is improved and thus the intrinsic safety of equipment management is effectively guaranteed.