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    Longford Incident Summary 25 Sep 98

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    Иван Швыряев
    A gas processing plant in Longford, Australia experienced a catastrophic failure when a deethaniser reboiler fractured after becoming intensely cold during a restart. The failure released hydrocarbon vapor that ignited and caused a large fire, killing two employees and injuring eight others. It halted gas supplies for over two weeks, causing major losses. The root causes were inadequate hazard identification and safety procedures, as well as a lack of emergency isolation valves and proper operator training to deal with abnormal operations. Lessons included the need to identify low-temperature embrittlement risks, conduct thorough hazard analyses, maintain operational readiness for disasters, and use remote emergency valves to control large accidental releases.

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    Longford Incident Summary 25 Sep 98

    Uploaded by

    Иван Швыряев
    20 views1 page
    A gas processing plant in Longford, Australia experienced a catastrophic failure when a deethaniser reboiler fractured after becoming intensely cold during a restart. The failure released hydrocarbon vapor that ignited and caused a large fire, killing two employees and injuring eight others. It halted gas supplies for over two weeks, causing major losses. The root causes were inadequate hazard identification and safety procedures, as well as a lack of emergency isolation valves and proper operator training to deal with abnormal operations. Lessons included the need to identify low-temperature embrittlement risks, conduct thorough hazard analyses, maintain operational readiness for disasters, and use remote emergency valves to control large accidental releases.

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    A gas processing plant in Longford, Australia experienced a catastrophic failure when a deethaniser reboiler fractured after becoming intensely cold during a restart. The failure released hydrocarbon vapor that ignited and caused a large fire, killing two employees and injuring eight others. It halted gas supplies for over two weeks, causing major losses. The root causes were inadequate hazard identification and safety procedures, as well as a lack of emergency isolation valves and proper operator training to deal with abnormal operations. Lessons included the need to identify low-temperature embrittlement risks, conduct thorough hazard analyses, maintain operational readiness for disasters, and use remote emergency valves to control large accidental releases.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    20 views1 page

    Longford Incident Summary 25 Sep 98

    Uploaded by

    Иван Швыряев
    A gas processing plant in Longford, Australia experienced a catastrophic failure when a deethaniser reboiler fractured after becoming intensely cold during a restart. The failure released hydrocarbon vapor that ignited and caused a large fire, killing two employees and injuring eight others. It halted gas supplies for over two weeks, causing major losses. The root causes were inadequate hazard identification and safety procedures, as well as a lack of emergency isolation valves and proper operator training to deal with abnormal operations. Lessons included the need to identify low-temperature embrittlement risks, conduct thorough hazard analyses, maintain operational readiness for disasters, and use remote emergency valves to control large accidental releases.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 1

    Lessons Learned Database

    Individual Incident Summary Report

    Incident Title Deethaniser Reboiler Catastrophic Failure


    Incident Type Fire
    Date 25th September 1998
    Country Australia
    Location Longford (VIC)
    Fatalities Injuries Cost
    2 8 $813 m – Ref. 4
    Incident Description A gas processing plant was taken off-line following a major upset. A few
    hours later, the rich oil deethaniser reboiler had become intensely cold and
    failed catastrophically when warm lean oil was re-introduced during restart.
    The failure released more than 10 tonnes (22,000 lb) of hydrocarbon vapour
    to atmosphere. The vapour cloud drifted 170 m (560 ft) to a set of fired heaters
    and ignited. The flame front from the resulting deflagration burned through
    the vapour cloud without causing an explosion. When it reached the ruptured
    exchanger, a fierce jet fire developed beneath an elevated piperack junction
    and flame impingement caused 3 more leaks. The resulting fire burned for
    more than 2 days. Two employees were killed and eight more were injured.
    Supplies of natural gas to domestic and industrial users throughout the State
    of Victoria were halted for more than 2 weeks, causing substantial losses to
    industry and massive inconvenience to people in their homes.
    Incident Analysis Basic cause was brittle fracture of the deethaniser reboiler channel end due
    to intense low temperature (-42 oC vs 100 oC in normal operation).

    Critical factors included: 1) Loss of warm lean oil flow for an extended
    duration. 2) Absence of remote-operated emergency block valves (EBVs) to
    isolate interconnecting plant, 3) Senior engineering staff had been relocated
    to the head office in Melbourne several years earlier.

    Root causes included: 1) Inadequate hazard identification (low temperature


    hazard due to loss of lean oil), 2) Incomplete operating procedures (due to
    inadequate hazard identification), 3) Inadequate operator training (abnormal
    operations and upsets), 4) Inadequate alarm management (too many alarms,
    poorly prioritised), 5) Failure to conduct a management of change (MoC)
    review (organisational change relocating senior staff to head office), 6)
    Safety management system not fully implemented (inadequate supervision
    of operations and personal safety prioritised over process safety).
    Lessons Learned 1) Cold metal embrittlement of carbon/low alloy steels is a low probability,
    high consequence hazard that is sometimes overlooked, 2) Risk assessment
    can only be conducted against known hazards, so it is imperative that
    comprehensive process hazard analysis (PHA) studies (including Hazop) are
    conducted on hazardous plant, 3) Organisations should ensure their
    workforces always remain mindful of the possibility of disaster (“chronic
    unease”) and report all incidents and their root causes, 4) Remote-operated
    emergency block valves (EBVs) can be deployed to control large accidental
    releases of flammable materials, 5) The State of Victoria introduced the
    Occupational Health and Safety (Major Hazard Facilities) Regulations 2000
    which legislated a requirement for a Safety Case at all major hazard facilities.
    More Information 1) “Report of the Royal Commission into the Accident at Esso Longford”,
    June 1999,
    2) “Lessons from Longford”, Andrew Hopkins, CCH Australia Ltd., 2000,
    ISBN 1-86468-422-4,
    3) “Have Australia’s Major Hazard Facilities learnt from the Longford
    Disaster?” James Nicol, Institution of Engineers Australia (IEAust), 2001,
    ISBN 0-85825-738-6,
    4) “The 100 Largest Losses 1978 – 2017”, Marsh Property Risk Consulting
    Practice, 25th Edition (2018).
    Industry Sector Process Type Incident Type
    Oil & Gas Gas Processing Plant Fire
    Equipment Category Equipment Class Equipment Type
    Mechanical Heat Exchanger Shell & Tube

    Rev. 0 Page 1 of 1 Peter Marsh


    30-Jun-20 Director – XBP Refining Consultants Ltd

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