Explosion at PEMEX-Three fatalities and several injuries

Pemex Veracruz Mexico Explosion

April 21, 2016- A massive explosion and toxic vapor cloud were reported from the site of a petrochemicals manufacturing plant which is part of PEMEX in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico.  The plant is part of Petroquimica Mexicana de Vinilo, or PMV, a vinyl petrochemical plant that is a joint venture between Pemex’s petrochemical unit and a … Read more

Designing Safety Instrumented Systems?- Five things to watch out for

Modern chemical and hydrocarbon processing plants, oil & gas production facilities, power plants and other similar process plants all have some instrumented systems that ensure functional safety. These are known as Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS for short). This post is about SIS and how you can avoid certain pitfalls while designing them. To those of … Read more

Are integrated SIS/DCS systems better than standalone SIS DCS systems?

Lately, there have been many launches of new “integrated” control systems, that have both DCS and SIS systems in the same package. For those of you are not familiar with these terms, an SIS is short for “Safety Instrumented System“, which is a special kind of control system that is used for the safety critical … Read more