Practice of RBI in Refinery and Chemical Plants of China

An overview of Risk-based Inspection (RBI) practice in Refinery and Chemical Plants of China is presented in this paper, including methodology review and research, pilot project, comprehensive implementation, regulations and standards development. The interest for RBI in China resulted from a need for improved safety, cost control and more effective management of inspections. Since 2000, several inspection institutes and universities took the initiative and started working on research and development of an appropriate RBI implementation in China. Several researches and pilot projects during the last few years led to a progressive acceptance of the RBI technique in the country. The results of these projects are new improved regulations on pressure vessel and piping safety techniques, which have been formally approved. The regulations are accompanied by standards on pressure equipment damage mechanism identification and RBI implementation guidance, which are been preparing by CSEI, HGMRI and JSSEI. RBI studies for almost 300 process plant units have already been conducted in China. This paper also presents the RBI methodology and software ORBIT Onshore which has been used in a significant number of RBI studies in China.