IMPERIAL CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES

HEAVY ORGANICS DIVISION

SAFETY NEWSLETTER NUMBER 27

By Trevor Kletz

27/1 OIL & WATER MAY MEAN CORROSION

Several recent incidents, some of them serious, in the Division and elsewhere have shown
that rapid corrosion can occur when oil and water meet.

Corrosion

The oil alone is not corrosive. The water alone is not corrosive. But when they meet the
water may react with impurities in the oil to produce corrosive products.
For example, if water is added to an oil line through a branch, rapid corrosion can occur at
the welds.
WATER
If there is any similar situation on your plants, CHECK THEM FOR CORROSION.
The best way to add water is like this:

27/2 IF YOU CAN’T SEE IT IS CLEAN, ASSUME IT IS DIRTY

A vessel was divided into two halves by a baffle which it was decided to remove. The vessel
was cleaned out, inspected and a permit issued for a man to enter the left-hand side of the
vessel to burn
 out the baffle. It was impossible to see into the right-hand half but as the left-hand half was clean and
as no combustible gas could be detected it was assumed that the other half was also clean.

Man-hole

Ladder

Drain
Drain

While the welder was in the vessel some deposit in the right-hand half caught fire. The welder got out
without serious injury but bruised himself in his haste.
If a part of a vessel cannot be inspected and seen to be safe, then we must assume the vessel
contains hazardous materials.
If the previous contents were flammable, we must assume there is some flammable material out-of-
sight.
If the previous contents were poisonous, we must assume there is some poisonous material out-of-
sight and breathing apparatus must be worn for entry.
Gas tests alone are not conclusive. There may be some sludge present which gives off gas when
heated or disturbed.
A similar incident in another Company was described in Newsletter 18, Item 7(e):
The roof was blown off an empty tank while a welder was repairing the roof. Although the tank
had been cleaned and gas-freed, the welding vaporised traces of heavy oil which were trapped
between the plates. The report states:
“It should be recognised that hot work on an ‘empty’ tank or vessel which has contained
petroleum is potentially hazardous unless all proper precautions have been taken. Traces of
products can be retained in the tank despite thorough cleaning. Tanks which have held heavier
fractions, such as kerosine, gas oil or bitumen, may in these circumstances, be even more
dangerous than those which have held gasolines. The heavy products vaporise more slowly and
they may not be detected by explosimeter tests”.
27/3 REMOTE ISOLATION VALVES
“Motorised valves should be installed so that equipment which is liable to leak can be isolated from a
safe distance, without the need for operators to enter the cloud of leaking gas or vapour. (In some
cases, remotely operated blow-down valves will be needed as well).
Obviously we cannot install these valves on all equipment which might leak but we can install them on
equipment on which experience shows that leaks are quite likely to occur, especially if the inventory is
large.
Many remotely operated valves of this nature are installed already in HOC Division, but there may be
some further places where they should be installed.”
From Report No. 0.21,156/B (available from Division Reports Centres) which applies the
recommendations of the report on the 1969 Polythene Explosion to HOC Division.
A similar statement occurs in Engineering Department Instruction 2.13, “Essential Safety
Considerations”.
 These remotely operated isolation valves are not cheap but the value of having them was
demonstrated at the end of last year when a bad leak occurred on a pump gland containing LPG. The
leak was due to a bearing failure, causing collapse of the gland, and the heat which developed
caused the leak to ignite immediately. If remotely operated isolation valves had not been fitted the fire
might have continued until all the LPG in the vessel feeding the pump had been burnt.
Somebody remarked that this incident has paid for all the remotely operated isolation valves that the
Division has installed in recent years.
27/4 A STORAGE TANK IS SUCKED IN BECAUSE THE P & V VALVE HAS BEEN ASSEMBLED
INCORRECTLY
Another Company has reported that a storage tank was sucked in because the pressure and vacuum
weights in a pressure/vacuum relief valve were interchanged.
In HOC Division we use two sorts of pressure vacuum relief valve - the BlundeIl and the Shand and
Jur. The Blundell cannot be assembled incorrectly. However, on the Shand and Jur type ST-7575
Tite Seal Breather Valve it is possible to interchange the pressure and vacuum pallets - they are
identical in size and shape but one is made of brass and the other of aluminium.
Shand and Jur have now produced a conversion kit for modifying the 4 in. and 6 in. size valves so
that the pallets cannot be interchanged; it costs £3 per set and is “good value for money”. They do not
produce a kit for the 3 in. size and it is necessary to replace this by the latest design No. 4020. This
design should be ordered for all new tanks.
27/5 TEST IMPORTED NITROGEN BEFORE USE
If you bring in nitrogen by road tank wagon, do you analyse it before accepting it?
Another company has reported that a load of ‘nitrogen’ was recently found to be liquid air. They used
the ‘nitrogen’ to sweep out a catalyst bed and, not surprisingly, the catalyst got rather hot.
27/6 THE DESIGN ASPECTS OF ISOLATING EQUIPMENT FOR MAINTENANCE WORK
Four years ago there was a serious fire in the Division in which three men were killed and plant was
extensively damaged. Maintenance workers were dismantling a pump; when they removed the cover,
hot oil, above its auto-ignition temperature came out and caught fire as the suction valve on the pump
had been left open.
Report No. 0.21,100/B (available from Division Reports Centres) describes the incident in detail.
Following this fire the HOC Division Board issued an instruction on the preparation of equipment for
maintenance which included the following:
“Before any item of equipment is handed over to Maintenance it must be isolated by slip-plates,
blanks, removal of a section of pipe or other equally effective means, unless the job to be done is
so quick that fitting slip-plates etc. would take as long and be as hazardous as the main job.
If isolation is made by removal of a section of pipe, the open end leading to the rest of the plant
must be blanked off immediately the section of pipe is removed.
A single isolation valve is never an ‘equally effective means’ of isolation.
Before any joint is broken, even to insert a slip-plate, the valves isolating the equipment or
section of line must be locked shut with a padlock and chain.
The three stages in the operation, isolation, maintenance and removal of the isolation, must be
separately authorised, e.g. by issue of three Permits-to-Work.”
It was realised that in order to carry out these instructions, proper provision must be made at the
design stage of new plants and a design note and specification were written describing in detail how
this should be done. This design note and specification have now been revised and copies of the new
edition are available on request.
27/7 ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT FOR USE IN HAZARDOUS AREAS
Intrinsically safe equipment has a long history. In the 18th Century attempts were made to illuminate a
gassy coal mine by the phosphorescent glow from putrefying fish skins.
27/8 OPERABILITY STUDIES
Most people know something about operability studies but if you have not taken part in one you may
be a bit vague.
Operability studies are a technique for finding out during plant design if there are any snags which
would make it unsafe or inoperable.
Each pipeline is considered in turn and a number of questions asked.
These are:
None
More of
Less of
Part of
More than
Other
For example, ‘more of’ means:
Could the flow be more than design? How could this arise? What would happen if it did? How can
this be controlled?
Could the pressure, or temperature, or concentration of one component be more than design? How
could this arise? What would happen if it did? How can this be controlled?
By asking these questions, a number of faults in the design are shown up. The study team must be
experienced people. An operability study is not a sausage machine for turning out the right answers,
so long as someone winds the handle. An operability study is a way of harnessing the knowledge,
experience and ability of the team members and the results will be as good as this knowledge,
experience and ability.
Underlying operability studies is the assumption that errors in design are due to the complexity of the
plant and not to a lack of knowledge; operability studies provide a way of harnessing and applying the
knowledge that is available in the minds of the team.
When operability studies were started, the answers were all written down and the team were driven
up the wall. Gradually a more streamlined technique was developed —only points for action or further
investigation are now written down — and the technique has been made acceptable to creative
minds. The latest form of the technique is described in Report No. 0.200,637/A by H B Charman,
available from Division Reports Centres.
We now carry out operability studies on all new plants — though not always on off-sites. It is
significant that on our latest, highly successful plants, the biggest ‘dangers’ have been on off-sites.
27/9 RECENT PUBLICATIONS
(a) “Eye Protection, Wilton Code of Practice,” available from Miss E Crane, Services Works, Wilton
(W.6963).
(b) “Company Emergency Procedure — Hazardous Freight”, available from the HOC Transport
Manager or from Central Literature Store, P0 Box 21 6, Witton, Birmingham.
(c) A note on the Public Inquiry on the Highly Flammable Liquids Regulations.
(d) A report from one of the oil companies on some fires which have occurred during the loading and
unloading of road tank wagons.
(e) A lot of information has been published on the effect of temperature on explosive limits and on the
effect of inert gases on explosive limits (see for example, U.S. Bureau of Mines Bulletins 503 and 627
and ICI Report No. D.74207/B). Little has been published on the effect on explosive limits of varying
the temperature and adding inert gas at the same time A review of the information that is available
has been produced by another Division.
 For copies of (c) to (e) or more information on any item in this Newsletter, please write to Miss M N,
Organic House, Billingham, or ring B.3927. If you do not see this Newsletter regularly and would like
your own copy please ask Miss N to add your name to the circulation list.
March 1971