Hydrocarbon Processing - December 2021 - 16

Reliability
dition and seriously flawed decisions can
impede progress. During an economic
downturn circa 2008, a corporate headquarters
organization demanded immediate
cancellation of a major project. Immediate
cessation of all work was decreed,
although cancellation required abandoning
work on an almost-completed oil mist
storage yard full of rotating equipment.
The fluid machines had only recently ar100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0.5
Oil
mist preservation
Conventional preservation
No preservation
rived in anticipation of being installed on
close to 100 foundations.
The signal to resume work came years
later, and the ultimate cost of the " leave
unprotected mandate " flew in the face of
every aspect of reasonable risk management.
Millions of dollars were spent in unavoidable
dismantling, parts replacement
and equipment reassembly. Today, a 9-gal
oil mist console lists for less than $50,000,
and chances are it cost considerably less in
2008. This amount would have included
a mist density monitoring instrument and
a back-mounted spare. To be fair, let us
add $50,000 in today's dollars for labor
and temporary, 1.5-in. field piping-still
pocket change compared to rebuilding a
massive amount of equipment that had
been left unprotected in weather conditions
that ranged from -20°F to +105°F
and included snow, ice, torrential rains
and blistering heat.
We are now in late 2021, and a strangely
1
1.5
Years after shutdown
FIG. 2. Percentage of defective machines vs. preservation method and elapsed time.
2
2.5
3
related experience is making the rounds of
a worldwide network of reliability professionals.
It involves a major project where
an EPC firm will not be able to use oil mist
in an outdoor staging area, which is where
some of the equipment will be stored for
years. Apparently, the EPC's contract with
the equipment owner requires that every
one of probably hundreds of machines will
be dismantled and cleaned before being reassembled
and ultimately commissioned.
If these unconfirmed rumors were
true, three undisputed facts would apply:
1. Storage with oil mist blanketing
would have saved the owner
an inordinate amount of
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money-perhaps 100 times
the cost of dismantling the
machines, followed by replacing
corroded parts and reassembling
subassemblies and full assemblies.
2. The storage with oil mist
blanketing would totally inhibit
corrosion, and the above tasks
could probably be done at onetenths
of the likely cost.
3. This again shows that some
management members never
have time to obtain facts on
what reliability improvement
really entails, and what potential
cost savings are lost to both the
company and its stakeholders.
HEINZ P. BLOCH resides in
Montgomery, Texas. His professional
career commenced in 1962 and
included long-term assignments as
Exxon Chemical's Regional
Machinery Specialist for the U.S. He
has authored or co-written more
than 770 publications, among them 24 comprehensive
books on practical machinery management, failure
analysis, failure avoidance, compressors, steam
turbines, pumps, oil mist lubrication and optimized
lubrication for industry. He excerpted much of this
material from his latest book, Optimized Equipment
Lubrication, Oil Mist Technology and Standby
Protection, published by DeGruyter in 2021.
16 DECEMBER 2021 | HydrocarbonProcessing.com
% of machines failing on restart
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Hydrocarbon Processing - December 2021

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