PSSR of Petrochem Plant

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A publication of
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS

VOL. 82, 2020 The Italian Association
of Chemical Engineering
Online at www.cetjournal.it
Guest Editors: Bruno Fabiano, Valerio Cozzani, Genserik Reniers

Copyright © 2020, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l.
DOI: 10.3303/CET2082005
ISBN 978-88-95608-80-8; ISSN 2283-9216
Pre-Startup Safety Review Performance and Close-Out

Management for a New Licensed Petrochemical Plant
Federica Di Vito
Design HSE Manager, Tecnimont SpA, via De Castillia 6A, 20124 Milano, Italy
[email protected]
During the development of a licensed petrochemical industrial plant project, the identification, review and
proper addressing of hazards is carried out by the different project’s stakeholders (Licensor, EPCC Contractor,
Owner, etc.) since the early phases of feasibility study and basic engineering, up to detail design,
procurement, construction and commissioning phases.
This results in multiple layers of HSE requirements whose proper and effective implementation needs to be
checked before commencing operations, in order to prevent adverse HSE consequences that could affect
other business aspects and success of the project.
A formal process to ensure that plants and facilities conform to HSE requirements, that relevant safety,
operating, maintenance and emergency procedures are in place and that all process hazard analyses
recommendations have been implemented, is the Pre-Startup Safety Review, or PSSR.
The PSSR shall be performed at site by a multidisciplinary team as close as possible, but prior to the
mechanical completion, when fire protection systems, fire water network, fire and gas detection systems and
emergency blow down systems are in place.
The PSSR team shall evaluate the overall review results and recommend whether the concerned unit/system
is ready and safe to start-up.
This paper illustrates how different sessions of Pre-Startup Safety Review were performed and managed to
close-out on a new petrochemical plant, to demonstrate that the facilities were ready and safe prior to the
introduction of any hazardous materials.
1. Introduction
In March 2005, the BP Texas City refinery suffered a major disaster that killed 15 and injured 180 others. BP
hadn’t properly conducted safety critical checks. The CSB investigators found an inoperative pressure control
valve, a defective high-level alarm and an uncalibrated sight-glass level transmitter as well as portable trailers
with non-essential personnel located too close to the process (CSB, 2007), Properly performed PSSRs would
have prevented this event (Broadribb M.P., Flynn S.A., 2009).
Effectively conducted PSSRs can prevent incidents and the resultant harm to personnel, equipment damage
and loss of production and profits. PSSR is also a critical element of the process safety management (PSM)
program mandated by the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which
defines the need for a PSSR in 29 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) 1910.119(i). According to OSHA, the
ultimate responsibility lies with plant or facility management to ensure a PSSR is properly conducted before a
covered process is started (Wincek, 2018).
The goal of the Pre-Startup Safety Review (PSSR) process is to provide a coherent, systematic, and as
simple a strategy as possible to implement, in order to ensure that all prior identified hazards, loss exposures
and other potential unidentified hazards associated with plant start-up and operation have been addressed to
close-out before start-up.
According to the contractual requirements and to construction progress it may be decided to cover the PSSR
in a single session or in two or even more sessions (Marucco D., 2015).
Paper Received: 4 January 2020; Revised: 8 May 2020; Accepted: 30 July 2020
Please cite this article as: Di Vito F., 2020, Pre-startup Safety Review Performance and Close-out Management for a New Licensed
Petrochemical Plant, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 82, 25-30 DOI:10.3303/CET2082005
26
2. Project Overview
Tecnimont S.p.A., international leader in the field of petrochemical plant engineering, in joint venture with a
Chinese contractor, was appointed by the national oil & gas company as EPCC contractor of a 400,000 tons
per year High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) licensed plant in Malaysia.
The HDPE Plant was a fundamental component of the overall 27 billion USD investment made for a world
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scale integrated refinery and petrochemicals complex, which covered an area of 80 km and included:
• Refinery with 300,000 barrels per day capacity
• Naphtha Steam Cracker
• Petrochemical Derivatives Units
• Cogeneration Plant
• LNG Regasification Terminal
• Deep Water Terminal
• utilities, off site and jetty installations.
The complex was designed to meet both domestic and Asia’s energy and chemicals demand, yielding an
estimated annual production capacity of 3.6 million tons of petrochemical products.
Figure 1: HDPE Plant aerial view
The Pre-Startup Safety Review (PSSR) process for the HDPE Plant started in the second quarter of 2019,
after the achievement of 80% mechanical completion and continued up to the end of the year, when the
Ready for Start-Up (RFSU) certificate for Hydrocarbon-In was released.
3. Pre-Startup Safety Review Process

In compliance with contractual requirements, two different PSSR Reviews were performed in series, both
managed by multidisciplinary Review Teams: the first one involved Licensor’s representatives and
Contractor’s representatives, while the second one involved Owner’s representatives and Contractor’s
representatives.
The reviews were covered in three sessions each, focused on the three macro-areas identified based on the
planned start-up sequence of the different process units:
• Hexane Storage and Hexane Distillation Section
• Extrusion and Dry-end Section
• Polymerization and Polymer Drying Section
Table 1 summarizes the split of Plant’s units by PSSR and the three macro areas superimposed to the Plant’s
plot plan are shown in Figure 2.Figure 2: PSSR macro areas
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Table 1: PSSR sessions

PSSR Session Macro-area Units involved
1 Hexane Storage and Hexane Battery limit
Distillation Section Hexane Unloading
Hexane Storage Tanks
Steam System
Wastewater basin
Substation & Field Auxiliary Room
2 Extrusion and Dry-end Section Extruder Natural
Extruder Black
Intermediate Silos
Blending Silos
3 Polymerization Section Jacket Water
Reactors and Outercoolers
Polymer Drying
TEAL unloading
TEAL Transfer
Figure 2: PSSR macro areas

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3.1 Pre-Startup Safety Review Teams and Guidelines

The Licensor’s PSSR was conducted by a Review Team including HSE, Design and Operation Specialists
from both Contractor and Licensor, led by Licensor’s Process Safety Manager. Licensor’s General HSE
Design Criteria and Criteria pertaining to the specific licensed HDPE technology were the reference guidelines
according to which the Plant was designed and built, and Licensor’s Pre-Startup Safety Review Sessions were
conducted.
The Owner’s PSSR was performed by a Review Team including HSE, Design and Operation Specialists from
both Contractor and Owner, led by Owner’s Central Directorate Operations Manager. A multidisciplinary
PSSR checklists, shown in Figure 3, was developed by Owner, to help in guiding the discussions and focus
the review effort in ensuring all process safety considerations were completed so that units being reviewed
were ready for the start-up.
Each subject was covered by the Review Team through the assigned Specialist, according to experience and
competences. Assistance to the Review Team was ensured by the Site personnel.
As a helpful support to the Review, the latest revision of: active and passive fire protection philosophies and
layouts, Fire and Gas philosophy and layouts, Hazardous Area Classification philosophy and layouts,
Quantitative Risk Assessment, P&IDs, Management of Change log, risk assessments action items close-out
final documentation of other disciplines involved, e.g. Process, Civil, Instrumentation/Telecommunication,
Electrical, etc., were made available.
Figure 3: Owner’s PSSR sample checklist

3.2 PSSR Execution
The PSSR sessions started with a tabletop discussion, aimed at the clear identification of session’s scope, the
review of related design documents and the planning of site visit. The site visit focused on actual
implementation at site of items discussed tabletop and on verification of physical readiness of the units in
terms of, but not limited to:
• availability and adequateness of escape routes throughout the Plant
• review of fire protection and fire detection systems installation
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• review of safety equipment installation i.e., safety showers, eye washes, first aid boxes, escape packs,
self-breathing apparatus, fire suits etc.
• check of other critical installations, such as process safety devices discharging to atmosphere, sampling
points, air intakes, Public Address General Alarm system, etc.
• check of housekeeping
For each item the Review Team determined implementation adequateness to allow the unit to be safely
started-up.
3.3 PSSR Findings, Tracking and Close-out
When substandard conditions were identified during the PSSR, the Review Teams proposed corrective
actions, called recommendations, to be properly addressed to ensure that all potential hazards were
eliminated.
For each session, reports were prepared by the Review Team Leader and issued with the photographic
evidence reference of the items not in compliance with guidelines i.e., findings, and the indication of the
recommendations to be applied. All PSSR recommendations were categorized based on Severity as per Risk
Assessment Matrix (RAM) in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Risk Assessment Matrix
Recommendations were prioritized by assigning risk ranking in accordance to the following criteria:
• all PSSR recommendations under Severity Rating 3, 4 or 5 were categorized as PS1 i.e., to be closed
before start-up
• all PSSR recommendations under Severity Rating 1 or 2 were categorized as PS2 i.e., to be closed after
startup.
After the two PSSR Reviews were completed, a total of 832 recommendations were identified for the HDPE
Plant, categorized as shown in Table 2 and Table 3:
Table 2: Licensor’s PSSR recommendations summary

PSSR Number of recommendations PS1 Number of recommendations PS2
Licensor’s Session 1 23 -
Licensor’s Session 2 26 -
Licensor’s Session 3 35 10
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Table 3: Owner’s PSSR recommendations summary

PSSR Number of recommendations PS1 Number of recommendations PS2
Owner’s Session 1 189 58
All PSSR recommendations were tracked and monitored internally through Contractor’s mechanical
completion database management system, using the existing punch-list template, and through a dedicated
register (refer Figure 5) reporting PSSR findings – “Requirement “ column – and related close-out action –
“Agreed Resolution” column. Status of all PSSR recommendations, PS1 and PS2, was updated on weekly
basis. Licensor and Owner respectively confirmed closure of recommendations upon provision of relevant
evidence.
The PSSR was officially closed out once all findings were closed out through specific agreed resolution.
Figure 5: Sample close-out register from Licensor’s PSSR
4. Conclusions
The Pre-Startup Safety Reviews carried out for the HDPE licensed Plant allowed for the proper identification
of gaps between the various HSE requirement acknowledged during the development of the Project and their
effective implementation before commencing operations. After the two PSSR Reviews were completed, a total
of 832 recommendations were identified for the HDPE Plant and the performance and close-out of the PSSRs
required the effort of the overall Project’s Team, including Engineering Specialists, Site personnel, Project
Management and Site Management from Contractor’s, Licensor’s and Owner’s side.
The HDPE Plant RFSU certificate for Hydrocarbon-In was achieved once all PS1 were closed-out and the
st
Hydrocarbon-In was safely performed with no incidents and no equipment damage on 31 December 2019.
References
Broadribb M.P., Flynn S.A., 2009, 4 years on from Texas City, Hazards XXI, IChemE Symposium Series No.
155, Sunbury-on-Thames, UK.
Marucco D., 2015, Pre- Startup Safety Review (PSSR), Tecnimont Work Instruction, Milan, Italy.
U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, 2007, Final Investigation Report no. 2005-04-i-tx
Refinery Explosion and Fire, BP, Texas city, Texas.
Wincek J.C., 2018, Perform A Proper Pre-Startup Safety Review — 5 Steps, Chemical Processing,
<www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2018/perform-a-proper-pre-startup-safety-review-5-steps>
accessed 20.03.2020.

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CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS

Guest Editors: Bruno Fabiano, Valerio Cozzani, Genserik Reniers

Pre-Startup Safety Review Performance and Close-Out

Figure 1: HDPE Plant aerial view

3. Pre-Startup Safety Review Process

Table 1: PSSR sessions

Figure 2: PSSR macro areas

3.1 Pre-Startup Safety Review Teams and Guidelines

Figure 3: Owner’s PSSR sample checklist

Figure 4: Risk Assessment Matrix

Table 2: Licensor’s PSSR recommendations summary

Table 3: Owner’s PSSR recommendations summary

Figure 5: Sample close-out register from Licensor’s PSSR

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