Becht Engineering has significant consulting expertise with improving reliability for chemical plants and refineries as well as upstream projects for oil and gas production. This multi-disciplinary task involves the clients’ representatives (operations, maintenance, inspection and engineering) together with Becht Engineering corrosion, mechanical integrity and reliability experts.
Refrigerated Liquefied Storage Tanks have been used for over 60 years in the industry. A significant number of these tanks store liquefied Propane and Butane, Ethylene and LNG and Ammonia. The stored fluids are at atmospheric pressures with temperatures which range from -45 F to -270 Failures of refrigerated tanks have been quite infrequent over […]
There are numerous challenges that Inspectors and Reliability Engineers face when developing Risk Based Asset Integrity Plans, such as: Identifying the applicable Damage Mechanisms Picking the correct Failure Mode(s) Determining the Probability of Failure Deciding how to mitigate risks to acceptable levels Industry documents give some guidance (i.e. API-571, API-580) but not the whole picture. […]
Integrity management of piping systems involves functional testing, inspection and maintenance of components which are identified as “safety critical”. Typically, these component types include control valves, isolation valves, pressure relief valves and instrumentation – but exclude check valves. However, recent incidents involving check valve failures have resulted in fatalities, equipment damage and toxic releases. These […]
The world of reliability is shifting from a calendar based approach to a smarter, risk-based approach in the hydrocarbon production and refining world. The leadership teams are now expecting a risk-based program in place for minimizing the HSE (Health, Safety and Environment) and economic consequences as much as possible. Some states have mandated the use […]
Every Refinery whether small or big, isolated or a part of a larger group generally has practices to improve reliability of operations. However, refineries who are known to be world class performers have well defined Reliability Management Systems (RMS) which focus on improving equipment reliability for piping, pressure vessels, rotating equipment, electrical distribution system, instrumentation […]
