Risk-Based Inspection

FOR ONSHORE INSTALLATION

The oil and gas process industry handles a wide range of flammable and toxic materials which are potentially hazardous. To reduce the hazards to an acceptable level, the authorities through legislation, have imposed requirements on the management of plants and facilities, requiring it to demonstrate that it has identified the existing hazards and undertaken mandatory inspection and mitigation measures to prevent accidents.
In the cyclic nature of the business, operators constantly find themselves balancing between meeting the regulatory requirements and avoiding business interruption. Those plants that succeed in operating more efficiently and reliably will be better positioned to ensure long term survival and success. Increasingly, innovative asset integrity strategies such as risk based inspection (RBI) are being implemented to meet these goals.

Risk based inspection (RBI) process is a systematic process that prioritizes inspection activities on the basis of risk. Risk based inspection (RBI) uses the results of quantified risk and production availability analysis to assess the potential consequence of failure. It combines material technology with load and resistance models to determine the probability of failure. A quantified ranking of process equipment, piping in terms of personnel and environmental risk, loss production and damage cost. It focuses the inspection towards high risk components and potential/active damage mechanisms for an optimal utilization of inspection resources on key assets. It is applicable for refineries, onshore chemical plants, and petrochemical plants.

Assess. We help to identify your needs and critical factors for risk based inspection (RBI) implementation Plan. We assist in developing detailed implementation plans addressing your current strength and weakness. We provide instructors for on-site classroom and on-the-job training.
Integrate. Our consultants ensure that your staff understands the power of this tool by assisting them in set-up, resourcing, data collection/validation, and analysis on selected unit Interface. DNV's ORBIT software provides an electronic database that can be used to interface with your maintenance management system.
Facilitate. Our skilled facilitators assist you in imbedding risk based inspection (RBI) technology into your management systems Support. We provide continuous support in technological advancements to ensure that the risk based inspection (RBI) technology is tailored properly to meet your changing needs.

ORBIT Onshore is a software tool which uses risk based inspection (RBI) technology to help you improve your inspection strategies. All plants have quantifiable risks for accidental release of hazardous materials. Quantifying these risks enables you to manage them accordingly.
ORBIT Onshore allows you to quantify the risk for each piece of equipment and identify which one of those items have the highest risk of failure. An inspection program can then manage these risks most effectively and hence improve safety performance.

Benefits:
- Determine inspection priorities.
- Improve operations.
- Evaluate future inspection plans.
- Identify critical contributors to risk.
- Establish optimum inspection levels.
- Incorporate acceptable risk levels.
- Reduce costs and improve safety.
ORBIT Onshore inspection efforts are focused on high risk equipment. Potential losses in terms of safety, equipment damage, environmental damage and business interruption are minimized and costs are reduced.

FOR OFFSHORE INSTALLATION
Risk-Based Inspection (RBI) is a systematic approach that creates an accurate, well targeted inspection strategies based on risks. The inspection plans developed are to mitigate the identified specific failure mechanism. It is applicable to offshore installations such as fixed or mobile units as well as FPSOs and pipelines.

With the uncertainty in oil price and the ageing of installations, the pressure on the operating costs means an ever-increasing need to guarantee more production availability whilst spending less on inspection and yet maintaining safety levels. Take that together with the high financial costs of downtime arising from a hydrocarbon leak and the heavy political repercussions of a pollution incident, and it adds up to difficult balancing act for operations and inspection manager.

One tool available to help in the risk management process is Risk Based Inspection (RBI). DNV has developed risk based inspection (RBI) methodology and software, specific to offshore installations, whether fixed, mobile, or FPSO, that enable the risks to be both measured and controlled through the inspection plans in a cost optimized manner for structures, hulls, topside pressure systems, risers and pipelines.
The methods have been developed in partnership with major international offshore exploration and operating companies. Successfully proven in the North Sea, Middle East and Far East, RBI is readily adaptable to address the specific requirements of the installations, as well as the operator's risk tolerance, and is easily updated to account for changes in service conditions.

Working Methods
- The method is semi-quantitative assessment. It quickly sorts the high risk from the low risk items. It is followed by a fully quantitative evaluation, where the risk is calculated and expressed numerically for each item.
- The system of time and risk assessment, allows the period when inspection is due based on the risk limit for each part is expected to be exceeded.
- Assessing the degradation mechanism allows the inspection technique to be specified, and the effects of the proposed inspections on the risk levels quantified, so that a detailed inspection plan is produced.
- Economic risk calculations include the effects from failure of each part of the systems on overall production levels. The output from this can be used in RCM analysis.
- Risk based inspection (RBI) can be used to optimize inspection by clearly showing whether inspection is the most cost effective method of risk reduction, or whether monitoring of process or other parameters would be more cost effective in determining the extent of degradation.

DNV has developed a sophisticated software suite called ORBIT that assists in inspection plan development for structures, process, and pipeline by modeling the degradation, safety, and economic risks, complemented with their forecasted changes as the installation ages.
- ORBIT calculates an inspection plan based on user defined inspection methods and cost of application.
- ORBIT gives the most cost effective inspection method and when it should be applied to each part on the basis that risk is maintained below your company limits.
- ORBIT can interface with most inspection management programs for data transfer and inspection plan updates.
- Use of ORBIT allows speedy updates of risk from inspection findings and calculation of what-if scenarios.

FOR ABOVEGROUND STORAGE TANK
AST Risk Based Inspection is a method tailored towards aboveground storage tank for using risk as a basis to prioritize and manage the efforts of an inspection program. An effective risk based program results in a reduced level of risk for a given level of inspection activity.

Risk = Likelihood of Failure x Consequence of Failure

The likelihood of failure from a tank is a direct function of the nature and rate of the degradation mechanisms to which it is subjected. The essential considerations are:
- Corrosion Rate
- Soil Condition
- Tank Pad
- Tank Drainage
- Cathodic Protection
- Bottom Type
- Operating Temperature
- Internal Coating or Liner
- Tank Steam Coil Heater
- Water Draws
- Past Inspections

In AST RBI, the consequence of failure is evaluated based on clean-up costs associated with:
- Environmental clean-up costs
- Environmental penalties
- Repair costs
- Lost opportunity costs

Risk-Based Inspection

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