Yet another Hydrogen Sulfide accident!

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After the recent Total facility gas leak case, this is another one in Texas. A gas supected to contain Hydrogen Sulfide has affected workers at the Tyco plant in North Lubbock. It is not clear if they were wearing any personal protective equipment or not. It is also unclear if they were carrying any portable toxic gas detectors that could detect the presence of Hydrogen Sulfide. These clamp on type personal gas monitors are very useful lifesavers when working in an area that may contain Hydrogen Sulfide. This gas is also referred to simply as H2S (after its chemical formula) and smells like rotten eggs in lower levels of concentration. If one ignores this smell however, the human nose gets desensitized and higher levels do not smell bad at all-they simply knock you down dead-stone dead-you’ll never know what hit you!

It is therefore all the more important that the authorities, especially OSHA insist on workers carrying these little clamp on meters that give off alarms in the presence of H2S gas. These gas monitors may cost just a few hundred dollars each, but they can save hundreds of human lives.

Lightning effects cause industrial accident

We have often been warned to stay away from tall metal structures, trees and other kinds of lightning attractors during a thunderstorm, but many of us do not think about it seriously enough. If you are amongst these non believers in such warnings- be warned.  An industrial accident was reported on 26th June 2009, when a man who was working near a tower crane during a thunderstorm, caught fire!  Apparently,  the lightning charged the entire tower crane with a high enough voltage and electrified the surroundings through the air (air is a dielectric only at low voltages, but at high enough voltage levels it breaks down and conducts electricity).  This effect set him on fire, but luckily he was rescued by co-workers and is reportedly still alive but burned and battling for his life in a hospital.

The incident happened in East Greebush, Vermont and was reported in CBS06 of Albany here

So what does actually happen in a thunderstorm? AS lightning and other high voltage static electrical phenomena happen, they induce large currents in metal and other conducting structures in the area. As per the Faraday effect these induced electromagnetic fields are strong enough that they can cause a lot of destruction like blowing up electronic circuitry and causing fires. Remember, this is still one of the suspected causes of the recent Air France disaster.

So take lightning, static electricity and induced currents seriously enough or you’ll get into trouble. Ensure that lightning and surge protection is operating everywhere in your industrial plant to avoid the large damages that can be caused by these hard to predict events.

OSHA fines Hess refinery for safety violations

OSHA has cited Hess Corporation, that operates an oil refinery in Port Reading, N.J., for workplace safety and health violations, proposing fines totaling $141,500. The agency initiated the investigation as part of its National Emphasis Program focused on petroleum refinery process safety management.  The company has been issued 31 serious violations and one other-than-serious violation, reports OSHA on its website here.

“OSHA’s process safety management regulations are designed to reduce or eliminate workplace hazards associated with the catastrophic release of highly hazardous chemicals,” said Patricia Jones, director of OSHA’s area office in Avenel, N.J. “If not corrected, these violations could compromise the safety and health of Hess employees.”

The  company’s failure to properly document process safety information, conduct a proper process hazard analysis, evaluate contractor safety and health programs, properly train employees, conduct maintenance on critical instruments, update operating procedures, regularly conduct incident investigations, resolve incident investigation findings in a timely manner, properly install metal stairs, maintain ladders in a safe condition, support piping systems, and protect against physical damage and excessive stresses resulted in the fines.

This shows that OSHA is taking its role as a regulator seriously enough, however the fines seem puny in comparison to the extent of the company’s operations. This should not set a new trend that allows companies to get away with fines instead of spending money on actual safety measures. The fines should be stringent enough so that companies will from the outset take safety more seriously.

Explosion at Sunoco refinery in Delaware-ethylene leak suspected cause

It is Monday, May 18, 2009 and firefighters are still battling flames at Sunoco’s  refinery and petrochemical complex at Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania. A suspected Ethylene leak caused a massive explosion and fire in a unit in the refinery and petrochemical complex on Sunday night. Luckily, no casualties have been reported.

Sunoco reportedly operates the Marcus Hook, 335,000-bpd Philadelphia and 145,000-bpd Eagle Point, New Jersey, refineries as a single facility. The news immediately led to a rally in gasoline prices in the area.

Further details about the incident were not immediately available but local TV stations reported hearing the explosions in communities surrounding the facility.

This incident is the latest of explosions, fires and other disasters being reported in chemical and petrochemical plants in the US. Has the operations, safety and engineering staff at these huge facilities been reduced (or downsized) by the bean counters to such a degree that a lot of muscle has been cut alongwith the fat? One never heard of so many incidents previously, so obviously this is happening and nobody in the industries seems to “get” the big picture, which is not pretty. It just shows us the decline in the operating standards over the last few years when the engineers and technicians got sidelined and the so called “MBA/Accountant/Bean Counter” types took positions of power, in US manufacturing. Youngsters quickly saw that the path to success, did not go through an engineering career and we are seeing the results, not only on Wall Street, but also on Main Street.

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