Maximising safety during a turnaround

By Sarah Martin, President, Honeywell Sensing & Safety Technologies

Turnarounds at oil and gas refineries, chemical plants, power facilities and other industrial facilities are necessary events that require significant planning. They are essential to keeping all equipment performing at its best. These preventive maintenance times, usually occurring in the spring or autumn when the weather is mildest, can last from weeks to months.

Unlike a normal day on the job, turnarounds are complex events that can encompass up to 150,000 different activities. There are several key factors that can raise the level of risk at the plant during a turnaround, including: 

People

Additional workers come in during a turnaround, including contractors, agency workers and temporary workers. This can add thousands of extra people to a worksite, even doubling or tripling the workforce in some cases. More people, especially those who don’t normally work at the plant, means elevated risk. It is critical for all these workers to have proper personal protective equipment (PPE), gas detection and safety training.  

Machinery

To clean, repair and eventually reinstate the machinery at the plant, additional equipment and vehicles must be brought in during a turnaround. This could include cutting and welding equipment as well as equipment to power wash machinery and soften deposits. Some of these turnaround activities cause increased exposure to gasses. With more vehicles on site, the collision risk increases as well.

Location challenges

Executing a turnaround means that people are entering parts of the plant that are not built for humans, whether to make repairs or install new equipment. Workers must enter confined spaces, including shafts, manholes, tunnels and tanks, which increases their potential exposure to toxic gas build-up or risk of oxygen deficiency. In a confined space, they also can experience restricted movement, reduced lighting and communications capabilities and rescue challenges.   

Noise

The additional machinery and vehicles coming into the plant during a turnaround inevitably creates more noise. A study on hearing loss prevalence by industry found that roughly 61% of all workers in oil and gas extraction and mining occupations have been exposed to hazardous worksite noise, and 14% of noise-exposed workers develop hearing loss. Protecting workers from hazardous noise levels is essential to their safety.

Temperature and heat

A turnaround often demands “hot work” projects, defined by the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) as “any process that generates a source of ignition arising from working methods such as welding, flame cutting, grinding and using disc cutters”. These tasks can lead to accidental ignition of flammable or combustible materials; flammable gases can also leak into the work environment from hot work equipment.

Power

During a turnaround, the power is often turned off for periods of time, which creates higher-risk conditions. A 2019 study by Accenture (TA Cook) and Solomon Associates found that nearly half of manufacturing plants’ work-related accidents happen during maintenance outages.

Workers also may need to set up temporary power or lighting solutions during maintenance activities, which can pose risks when vapours and gasses are in the air. These solutions must therefore meet rigorous regulatory and safety standards to limit risk.

Limiting risk and promoting safety

Despite these risks, there are several ways to help keep workers safe and assets protected from all the increased activity during a turnaround. In addition to careful planning and safety training, gas detection is an essential component to a safe turnaround. 

Certain portable gas detectors help protect workers from benzene exposure, a chemical that is a natural part of crude oil and gasoline and is commonly used in production and processing of fuels. Benzene is both a colourless and flammable human carcinogen. The large display and long battery runtime of these devices make them optimal for use during a turnaround.

Other portable gas detectors are ideal for confined spaces, enabling users to clear a tight space for entry and continual monitoring while workers are inside. These technologies simultaneously detect gases required for monitoring confined spaces such as oxygen, hydrogen sulphide and carbon monoxide.

Worker PPE is another vital component to turnaround safety, from hearing protection to limit noise exposure to eye, respiratory and hand protection to help safeguard workers from cuts, flying debris and hazards in the air.

Turnarounds are a necessary part of many industrial operations and, while complex, these events do not need to pose a significant risk to workers. By putting the right systems, equipment and processes in place to safeguard workers and assets, industrial businesses can make turnarounds as smooth as possible.