Sastry, Your questions are not clear - contradicting each in itself. What are your existing systems, where are the areas you are contemplating improvements and establishing a better system ( whether you name as RBI, IOW, FFS etc). You have not made these clear. A discussion forum cannot give views on hypothetical questions. If your refinery is already having systems of inspection and practices, i believe, that itself can be improved upon with better monitoring schedules and plans of action. System needs a sincere and with people with integrity and with practices already established for your refinery. Improvements in that will give substantial benefits. If you are in the process of establishing RBI with existing inspection man-power to suit to the modern trends needed to establish RBI/ IOW/ FFS then also it can be done with existing people with some additional support inspection people. What is practised elsewhere in some other refinery or in some parts of the world may at best be taken as guideline only but these may not ideally suit your practising and implementing needs. Books and guide lines on RBI, IOW, FFS etc from other refinery users may help but ultimately your own inspection group and the in-built group's integrity and the continued top management support in your company is most critical for the success and implementation of the same in your refinery. In a nut shell, if you are establishing a system for your refinery (something new) and if you do not have in-built team to do, you may take the help of outside companies / consultants to do the same at a cost. If you have already some system which either it is working half satisfactorily or needs better improvement from modern day needs (RBI, newer adoption of NDT techniques to suit each process corrosion monitoring etc.) for which you and your company management have plans to invest in man-power needs and in newer equipment needs, you can still the take the help of outside consultants (experienced in this) and evolve your better improved system than existing one. All these can be done at a cost. For any system, RBI or FFS or IOW etc, what you need is a reliable, sincere and with integrity inspection man-power group in any refinery who are willing to learn, willing to diagnose the best suited N.DT or other corrosion monitoring programmes planned for proper implementation and also for reliable prediction and preventive methods and analysis of the same for a success. If you have one such system in your refinery that is probably the world's best system suiting to your refinery needs. Ultimately in any plant or inspection system, whatever you may evolve theoretically , it is the people whom you govern and their interest and integrity that would be the best practice suited to your plant's corrosion, N.D.T and RBI monitoring needs. Hope this helps you C.V.Srinivasan Nishi Engineers Pvt Ltd India March 10, 2008 E-mail: nishi@vsnl.com >Dear all, > >Feel nice to be back in the forum. > >We are in the process of evaluating various inspection >practices and corosion management vis a vis the worlds best, >other way around it is bench marking. > >I request all the members in particular the gurus viz. >CV.Sinivasan, Kris and the everlasting Mitra to throw some >ideas for consideration. > >I would further look at the worlds best/latest practices in >terms of statistics to evaluate the self. (a basis for us to >bridge the gaps). > >This could also include the issues like RBI, IOW's, FFS, >inspection manpower vs capacity of the refinery, latest >trends/NDT's/addressing CUI etc. against which the self >evaluation can be done. > >This could as well become a lengthy discussion. But I am >only looking at the major areas for improvement in >comparison with the worlds best. > > >Thanks > > >Regards, >Sastry

In my opinion eventhough so many best practices available with different players in the refining sector unless we have dedicated full time trained manpower to measure & monitor the each and every equipment it is very difficult to sustain the operation. As everyone aware due to very high crude oil price every refiner wants to get maximum benefit and to run the plant as length as possible. Due to high oil prices now refiners want to process the opportunity crudes without knowing the crude assay/corrosion characteristics will leads to unpredictable corrosion rate & subsequent failure.Especially the crude now people sourcing from african countries it is very difficult to assess & predict the corrosion components involved each and every crude. Back to best practice Shell global solution/Chevron has good source of both research and practical knowledge of operating thier refinery with so many type of crudes.If you engage them as a consultant defintely you can improve your inspection management system which will assure long run length with mininum breakdown. Regarding practising RBI unless you have good base data/running operating data's it is very difficult to grade the individual equipment and decide the next inspection schedule.If at all you want to implement RBI it is better to collect the datas right now and do the study in next 2-3 years. One such areas where many people neglect is small bore piping inspection & CUI.More than 90% of equipment/line failure is mainly attributed to these two failure mechanism. If you can improve the inspection practices with better monitoring system like selection of good coating under the insulation,sealing the cladding sheet, thermal imaging of pipelines while running,increase the pipe/fitting schedule to next thickness especially for vents & drains will definitely avoid failures. Hope i gave enough information. regards, krish