Point of View—Safety consultant Lefler: Refiners relying more on specialty safety service providers for turnarounds

Not many years ago, maintenance turnarounds at refineries and other processing plants were a dreaded point on the calendar because product was not being produced and because of the extreme dangers posed to both personnel and equipment.

The dangers are still there, but due to a growing niche industry in the maintenance field, turnarounds can now be handled much more safely and efficiently.

New companies are emerging that specialize in safety during plant maintenance operations because it relieves refiners from having to "reinvent the wheel" on safety each year. These companies have basically only one business: to provide safety services for maintenance and construction projects.

One such company is Port City Industrial Services, a division of Cust-O-Fab Cos. LLC, Tulsa, headed by Jim Lefler, vice-president and manager. Lefler is a certified safety professional who has more than 20 years' experience in plant safety.

Lefler said refineries are staffed for just the day-to-day operations, safety, and environmental concerns. When construction or maintenance begins, personnel in these areas are quickly overextended.

"Refineries are operating overall with smaller staffs," says Lefler, "and that's not just in the area of safety. The personnel are being stretched further all the time. Construction of new capital projects, such as with the new clean-fuels requirements [in the US], is putting a strain on the system."

The scheduled maintenance turnarounds are so large and involved, said Lefler, that plant personnel cannot adequately handle them.

"Typically, a refinery may have an additional 1,500-3,000 contract workers coming in from the outside," says Lefler, "and that's quite a shock to the system.

"On a recent turnaround in California, there were 3,000 outside contract workers. We had 85 support people there. Of that number, about 70 were confined-space entry attendants (hole watchers) and fire-watch personnel.

"Confined-space attendant, fire-watch management support and implementation is a major part of turnaround maintenance safety because that is the job that constantly monitors workers entering and exiting potentially hazardous environments and helps control ignition sources from hot work."

In addition, said Lefler, another 15 field safety supervisors would be assisting with getting safety permits updated for each shift, which allows the contract workers to go in and out of the work areas. Permits are requirements of specific plant policies and procedures that must be followed when performing maintenance.

Lefler said that during a turnaround there are a significant number of process vessels that need to be entered. Workers must enter the regenerators, reactors, and other vessels to do maintenance off and on for a period of several days. Prior to entering that confined space, however, it must be monitored with gas-detection equipment to make sure there are no combustibles, flammables, or toxics and that there is enough oxygen to work there.

"Someone has to make sure that nobody has accidentally turned something on or opened a valve or nitrogen bottle," says Lefler, "or done something else that has rendered the confined space unsafe to work.

"Confined spaces are potentially hazardous atmospheres, and if you don't do your business correctly in monitoring and updating the permits to enter those spaces, you are just asking for trouble. [US Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration] regulations have required that specific requirements are followed when working in these spaces."

Because all facilities are different, outside workers are particularly at risk from unmarked or poorly marked equipment and gas lines.

"A couple of years ago in a West Coast facility," says Lefler, "our personnel were going around updating permits, and they found a ventilation fan hooked to a nitrogen line rather than an air line. There were some air tools also hooked to the nitrogen lines because they were not labeled properly.

"Our safety supervisor came around to update the permit and stuck the end of the gas detection probe in [the confined space] and saw the oxygen content start dropping like a rock. He quickly alerted the shift supervisor and told him we have a confined space that is full of nitrogen.

"The safety manager of the plant said this person probably saved at least two or three lives."

If you walk into a confined space full of nitrogen, said Lefler, that is going to be a fatal mistake.

"When I entered the business about 1980," says Lefler, "an old production foreman who had been in the business about 40 years told me they used to tie a rope around their waist when they went into a tank to work, and when they started getting dizzy they would yell for the people outside to get them out of there, and they would be dragged out.

"Thank goodness those days are long gone."

Growing business

Like other safety-support companies, Lefler's company is relatively new. Port City started business in June 1998 to manage the tool and equipment assets of the parent company.

At the same time, Lefler said, they started a grassroots safety services company. He was put in charge because he had been the safety and environmental director of the parent company and had more than 15 years' experience as safety manager for a major oil company. The company has been growing rapidly ever since.

Specialty safety support workers are not in demand only in the US, however. Other countries are calling for help as plant safety and turnaround efficiency are getting higher priorities.

Outside the US

Lefler sees a growing interest in these services overseas. And some of the requests are a little unusual.

"We were asked to go to a foreign refinery and bring 28 safety support personnel with us. They wanted 14 English-speaking and 14 bilingual personnel—some of our people there were actually quadralingual—and 3 paramedics to assist them in running a clinic at the refinery.

"The plant had a medical director but only a small staff. We were supplementing that staff for the same reason we supplement the safety side. If you are bringing in 2,000-3,000 persons who need drug testing and blood tests, you need a lot of help in a short amount of time. And in the case of a safety event, more people would be on hand to handle any kind of emergency."

Preparation

Lefler said the safety professionals they bring to a plant have a minimum of 8-20 years' experience in safety, and they typically train for about a week on that facility's policies and procedures as well as the scope of the upcoming turnaround. They literally set up a policy and procedures training academy at the refinery.

"We make sure we know those procedures inside and out," says Lefler, "because we generally have about a week to prepare for the plant shutdown."

Lefler said they are typically on a refinery turnaround project 4-8 weeks.

"We ask a lot of questions right up front. We break down the goals of the turnaround and find out who is responsible for what. Everyone involved will know who is responsible for what. For instance, is that procedure going to be handled by the owner, contractor, or a specialty contractor? Are there any specialty procedures that must be reviewed or revamped prior to the project?"

During a turnaround, Lefler notes, "there will be specialty contractors coming in to do tasks such as inert entries of vessels. They are going to be wearing supplied-air respirators, and that is a very involved business. Are you going to use your procedures or the contractor's procedures? Have you fully reviewed that contractor's procedures, and are they acceptable? That's just one of the many areas to cover in preparation."

Lefler says his firm also has gone into a refinery and helped staff with the intraturnaround process for environmental monitoring. In California, for example, there are some specific environmental-monitoring regulations for turnaround operations that must be followed when there will be emissions of certain gases or chemicals into the atmosphere, like when depressurizing a vessel.

"You have to document everything you do, the time you do it, and how much you emit to the air," says Lefler. "We handle that because the owner is responsible, and we operate as a third-party representative of the owners."

Results

Through a variety of initiatives, including the use of third-party safety services, National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA) member companies have seen a 30% improvement in their OSHA-recordable injury rates since 1999.

For 2003, said Lefler, 117 refineries and 121 petrochemical plants participated in an injury-and-illness survey. During 2003, the recordable injury and illness rate for the refining sector was 1.46 cases/100 full-time employees and 1.16 cases for the petrochemical sector.

"At the same time," adds Lefler, "164 NPRA facilities recorded no lost workday incidents. American Petroleum Institute member companies also have seen injury rates decline at a similar rate.

"By comparison, the [US] Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in calendar year 2002—the latest year where data are available—that the average recordable injury and illness rate for private industry was 5.3 cases/100 full-time employees."

On a recent project, Lefler said, his company's clients said that they had completed the best safety performance ever during a turnaround.

Lefler feels that safety is a team effort, combining planning, execution, and the best skills of the owner, contractors, and all others involved in the process.

"Specialized safety service is a growing business niche. Refineries need these services," says Lefler, "and I see the demand only increasing."

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