Page 54 - SAPREF 50 year

“The Engineering department encompasses a range of specialised fields of engineering, each with a specific emphasis on a particular area of technology and type of application.
The Engineering department pla”ys a leading role in refinery Turnarounds.
Engineering
The Engineering department provides a number of services, namely integrity and reliability assurance, equipment fitness for service evaluation, projects and Turnaround execution, civil infrastructure inspections, tankage maintenance, and electrical and instrumentation system management.
The Engineering department is truly at the heart of the refinery. It encompasses a range of specialised fields of engineering, each with a specific emphasis on a particular area of technology and type of application.
Headed by Chris Kalaba, the department of 77 people encompasses Mechanical,
Civil, Electrical, Instrumentation, Projects, Reliability, and Turnaround sections. In addition to day-to-day engineering work, the sections have a responsibility to develop and provide long-range tactics. A few examples of these tactics include integrity piping — such as Corrosion Under Insulation (CUI), Corrosion Under Sleeves, painting the refinery, and electrical and civil master plans.
The Engineering department has only been a stand-alone department since
as recently as 2004. Before that it was integrated with the Maintenance department. The main reason for the separation was to give the Engineering department space and focus to develop long-term strategies for the
refinery’s assets.
Says Chris: “One of the department’s
highlights which will go into the history books is the recent 2013 Turnaround. With a peak of 6300 people on site, the event attained
a record schedule and cost overrun of 3%
and 4,5% respectively; and as for safety, we recorded a brilliant Total Recordable Case Frequency Rate (TRCFR) of 0,2. Benchmarks show that similar mega-complex events normally have schedule and cost overruns of 25% and 15% respectively.
“One of the biggest challenges within
the department is the CUI programme.
The Engineering team’s task is to detect
CUI pro-actively by inspecting piping and equipment systems before leaks occur. To contextualise the required effort, the refinery has approximately 160 000km of pipe work
and about one-third of this falls within the
CUI range. With the support of our service providers, we are making good progress and have seen a significant reduction in the number of CUI-related incidents.
SAPREF: FUELLING SA FOR 50 YEARS
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