JFET 21(3) (2014) 62-69

Journal of Faculty of Engineering & Technology

Journal homepage: www.pu.edu.pk/journals/index.php/jfet/index

Fire and Their Mitigation Efforts in Gas Processing Facilities

M.K. Nawaza, N. Ramzana, U. Tariqb

a
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
b
Berger Paints (Pvt.) Limited, Pakistan

Abstract:

Many hazard identification and risk management techniques are used in chemical
process industries (like HAZOP, QRA, PHA) at the design stage and in operational
plants to ensure smooth and safe run of all plant operations and activities. The
implementation of these techniques is robust, yet accidents happen in chemical process
industry. The investigation of such accidents has shown that the active measures for
prevention are inadequate and are often poorly designed. The purpose of this
manuscript is to study a gas processing facility and identify the needs for such active
measures which will act as first line of intervention to fire incidents, that will help in
avoiding the escalation of small incident towards a catastrophic event.

Keywords: Fire Zoning, Pool Fire, Spray Density, Top Event

 Journal of Faculty of Engineering & Technology, 2014

1. Introduction

Process safety in industry has used several tools such as PHA, HZAOP, QRA to cater
risks and failures. Each tool or technique can prevent the transformation of hazardous
events to accidents by design improvements [1]. But the history of chemical industry
has shown that with all these techniques implemented, the state of the art plants can
undergo accidents which will result in inevitable loss as described by the following
examples.

In September 2011, a fatal explosion at natural-gas plant in Mexico killed 30 workers

and injured another 46. The cause of the incident was a leak from a ruptured pipe at the
downstream of gas processing facility in the export line, causing an explosion [2]. In
September 1998, two people were killed in an explosion and fire at the Esso Longford
facility in Australia, which led to severe disruption of gas supplies to the State of
Victorias industry and retail customers for two weeks [3]. In July 1988, 167 men were
killed at an offshore platform named as Piper Alpha, resulting from oil and gas leakage
and probable ignition. The fire protection systems installed at the facility were
inadequate and were poorly designed to cater with the small leakage event which later
on escalated and engulfed the whole facility. This raised many questions on the safety
practices in the offshore as well as onshore oil and gas industry [4, 5].

All these and other incidents in chemical process industry show that the active
measures for the prevention of such events were inadequate or were poorly designed.
The purpose of this manuscript is to identify the need of these active measures and
provide the basis of design for these measures so that they can be used effectively. The
basics of active measure starts from the fire zoning in which the process plant is divided
into fire zones, for the purpose of allocating resources to the zone once a fire is initiated.
This is done to limit the damages caused by fire in one equipment which transfers heat
to nearby equipment and this heat will eventually become a source of fire for the other
equipment as well. Once the fire zones are identified then, the water demand for
particular equipment is calculated to extinguish the fire or control the temperature
increase of the equipment so as to avoid the mechanical failure.

The fire zoning is an important part to calculate the fire water demand of equipments.
The criteria for calculating the fire water demand that will be required for control of
burning or cooling purposes, which will be consumed by individual equipment is
calculated so that in case of any emergency the fire water to respective equipment is
provided and the spreading of fire is minimized. This fire water demand calculated then
helps in identifying the number of fire water equipment (hydrants, monitors,
hydrant/monitor combinations etc.) and determination of their strategic location. The
location is determined by keeping in mind the safety of the personnel operating these
fire water equipment and damages that will be caused by the process equipment.

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Subsequently, the isolation philosophy for this fire water equipment is decided to cater
the requirements when this equipment is required. This manuscript will identify the fire
zoning criteria which provides the basis for water demand calculation which will be
required in case of fire for the protection of process equipment.

In Pakistan, gas processing facilities are under the stage of development. Robust
design and management protocols are followed at the initial stages of the project which
has the result that no recordable catastrophic [6] incident has occurred in these gas
processing facilities in Pakistan. But these procedures and protocols do not rule out the
probability of catastrophic events, as they are a struggle to minimize such events.

Identify the fire potential equipment

Yes

Does the equipment hold sufficient

No
(5m3) of flammable/ combustible
inventory to cause pool fire?

Yes

Is there any other equipment within No Separate the fire

15 m radius? zone

Yes

No Does this equipment also a fire

potential equipment?

Yes

No Is there any fire barrier?

Yes

Separate fire zone

Fig. 1 Fire Zoning Criteria

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2. Fire Zoning

Chemical plant is divided into sections, including process area, utilities, and storage,
buildings, workshops, and product transportation units/areas. Amongst these sections,
the process and storage areas consist of the many hidden hazards. Amongst these
hazards, lies the containment of chemicals which are the source of fire.
inventory of the process units. The basis for dividing the process area into fire zones
are:
Equipment that are 15m apart from each other are considered to be in a separate
fire zone
Equipment separated by pipe racks, fire walls from other process equipments

Fire in one fire zone will not spread into another fire zone. The step by step fire zoning
procedure is described in figure 1.These areas are further subdivided into individual fire
zones based upon the hazardous

The fire zones are defined on the basis of the above mentioned criteria and fire water
demand of individual fire zone is calculated. The fire water demand is calculated for
individual equipment and then all the fire water demand for individual equipment is
summed together to calculate the fire water demand of one fire zone.

Fire Zone Separated by Pipe Rack

Fire Zone Separated

by 15m

Fig. 2 Fire Zoning of a Gas Processing Facility

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Figure 2 shows the fire zoning being carried out as an example, according to the criteria
mentioned for hydrocarbon liquid fire in a gas processing facility. The fire zones
developed under these conditions provide a conservative approach in determining the
active fire protection system needs. The fire zoning helps in the calculation of fire water
demand and positioning of hydrant, monitors etc. which will be used to cope with the fire
scenarios and helps in optimizing the resources.

Fire Water Demand

The fire water demand for individual equipment is calculated on the basis that the hold-
up volume of the process equipment is 5m3 or greater. The next step to calculate the
fire water demand is to know the actual dimensions of that equipment. The surface area
for every equipment is calculated with some margin to remain on the conservative side
like for pumps and compressors an additional 0.6m [10, 11] is added to the length and
width of the equipment for calculating the area. Figure 3 identifies the basic steps to
calculate the fire water demand of equipment.

Identify the equipment having fire potential

Yes

Does the equipment hold 5m3 or greater No

inventory?

Yes

Dimensions of the equipment to calculate the

surface area (H=7.6m)

Yes

Use spray density for particular types of equipment to find the fire
water demand

Fig. 3 Fire Water Demand Calculation

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The individual equipment demands add up to give the fire water demand of a fire zone.
Once the area of the process equipment is calculated this area is then multiplied by the
water spray density. The spray density is taken from different international standards.
The resulting fire water demand of individual equipments is added together to calculate
the amount of fire water needed for the complete one zone in case of pool fire. The
individual equipment fire water demand is calculated because in case of fire on any
equipment, the remaining euipments in that fire zone will require water for the cooling
purpose especially for those equipments in which the hazardous inventory is processed
near the auto-ignition temperature. As an example the fire water demand for a fire zone
is calculated in Table 1.

Table. 1 Fire Water Demand Calculation

Water Spray Water Zone

Area Density Demand Water
Sr.# EQIPMENT NAME Demand
(ft2) (USGPM/ft2)[11] (GPM) (GPM)
DEHYDRATION INLET
1 341.19 0.25 85.29
SEPARATOR
INLET FILTER
2 506.98 0.25 126.74
SEPARATORS
3 DUST FILTERS 386.67 0.25 96.66
GAS MOLECULAR SIEVE
4 322.30 0.25 80.57
BEDS
5 CRYO BYPASS KO DRUM 375.00 0.25 93.75
PLATE-FIN BRAZED
6 ALUMINIUM HEAT 114.192 0.25 28.54
EXCHANGER Yes
7 TURBO EXPANDER 196.33 0.25 98.16
8 TURBO COMPRESSOR 196.33 0.25 98.16
EXPANDER SUCTION
9 364.26 0.25 91.06
DRUM
LOW TEMPERATURE
10 455.44 0.25 113.86
SEPARATOR
11 DE-ETHANIZER COLUMN 780.37 0.25 195.09
DE-ETHANIZER
12 758.47 0.25 189.61
CONDENSER
13 DE-ETHANIZER REBOILER 758.47 0.25 189.61
DE-BUTANIZER
14 193.79 0.25 48.44
CONDENSER
15 BEBUTANIZER REBOILER 730.50 0.25 182.62
16 NGL RUNDOWN COOLER 445.19 0.25 111.29
17 DEBUTANZER 506.55 0.25 126.63 1829.86
DEBUTANZER OVER
18 338.20 0.25 84.55
HEAD DRUM
DE-ETHANIZER OVER
19 153.81 0.25 76.90
HEAD COMPRESSOR

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3. Strategic Location of Fixed Fire Water Equipments

Fixed water protection systems are subdivided into fire water ring main and associated
hydrants/monitors/foam system and spray/sprinkler systems. After calculating the water
demand for individual equipment these systems are placed in the processing facility on
the basis to provide quick intervention in case of emergency and to minimize the
impacts of small event at the earliest possible stage so as to stop the escalation
towards the top event. The major sources of these leaks/fires is near the valves, pump
flanges, compressor flanges and major pipe flanges. The leakage is considered to be
full bore leakage from the leak sources.

The fire water ring is routed around the process area. The piping of the main ring is
placed at 15m distance from the equipment so as in case of pool fire the network is at a
safe distance from the equipment to be protected. If this distance of the main ring piping
is not maintained than the piping is undergrounded. Hydrant/monitor combination is
proposed for the quick response to incidents and also minimizing the probability for the
operator to move in the processing area. These devices are kept at a distance of 15m
from the equipment to be protected so as to provide a safe distance to the operator of
these devices. The travel distance between adjacent hydrant/monitors is reduced to
30m to improve the system performance in case of the adjacent equipment is under
maintenance at the time of need. These distances are allocated on the basis that the
hydrants/monitors are operating in jet mode.

4. Isolation Philosophy

The isolation philosophy determines the operation of this firefighting equipment in case
of the blockage in the ring main or if a system in taken under maintenance and fire
incident happens. For this purpose a robust isolation philosophy has been proposed
which includes that the travel distance between two isolating valves be reduced to 100
m and that in no case more than three hydrant/monitor combination is isolated. On this
basis the firefighting devices are optimized so as in case one portion of the ring main is
isolated the fire water demand of the fire zone is fulfilled by other active
hydrants/monitors combination.

5. Conclusions

The catastrophic incidents are preventable only under the circumstances that the
protection systems are robust and fulfill the needs of the process design. This research
work was conducted to improve the design stage efforts for the gas processing facilities
in Pakistan and cater the needs of small incidents of fire which will escalate to the top
event if not addressed properly and in time frame manner. Due to these efforts the
asset life can be enhanced and subsequent loss of finance can be minimized.

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