The Failure Of Corrosion Inhibitor Piping System

A fatal accident occured at a petrochemical plant in June 2014 when an employee was carrying out repair work on the pressurized piping system that was used to transmit the corrosion inhibitor from the storage tank to the feed gas pipeline. The section of the corrosion inhibitor pipeline was found to be leaking at that moment, and repair work was carried out by installing a box enclosure at the leakage point(the piping system is at a pressure of approximately 70psig). When the victim was preparing the compound sealant solution to be pumped into the box enclosure, a sudden failure occured at the boxed up pipeline section and caused the box enclosure which was tightened on the flange to be detached. Corrosion inhibitor pressurized pipeline with box enclosure bent towards the victim and hit the victim as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 : Corrosion inhibitor pressurized pipeline with box enclosure

Preventive safety measures:

1. Proper inspection and assessment on the defective point of the pipe shall be carried out by a competent worker in advance to determine the severity of defect;
2. Repair work on any part of the processing piping system shall be carried out at zero pressure;
3. To perform periodic maintenance on all piping systems;
4. Install the stop valve on the corrosion inhibitor pipeline for safe isolation,and to prevent disruption of feed gas supply during any repair work being undertaken; and
5. Repair procedure need to be approved by the management after taking into account the hazards and risks that may arise from the activity to be undertaken.

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