Interrupted-Drum-Incident-a-Refiners-Report-Tracy-Phillips-66-DCU-Galveston-2016.pdfVIP

INTERRUPTED DRUM INCIDENT: A REFINER’S REPORT Frank Tracy Phillips 66 Frank.J.Tracy@P66.com INTRODUCTION Incident background: ? Two-drum coker with four-pass heater – Produces sponge coke ? Refinery-wide loss of electrical power and steam Topics: ? Interrupted drum with plugged inlet line ? Plugged heater 2 TIMELINE 4-Apr-2015 1:12 AM – refinery-wide electrical power outage ? Filling coke drum had two hours remaining until switch ? Feed pump tripped offline and velocity steam valves went to 100%. – Steam meters top at 500 lb/hr/pass (estimate 1/3 normal drum steam) 1:22 AM – Boilers started to trip and steam header pressure begins to slump 2:23 AM – Coker steam flow rapidly declining – temperature on the drum inlet begins to rise, indicating the back flow of some resid from the drum. 2:33 AM – Steam is lost completely – heater process temperatures indicate that resid flowed back into the heater until 2:42 AM. 10:42 PM – steam is restored – unable to get steam into bottom of coke drum or through heater. 3 TRANSFER LINE - HEATER TO DRUMS 4 TIMELINE 5 Loss of steam leads to resid backflow 2:24 at coke drum inlet 2:36 at pass outlets 2:42 at 5th tubes from bottom Didn’t reach 11th tube from bottom Drum Inlet Temp Velocity Steam Power Fails Steam lost SAFETY FIRST Situation once steam and power restored: ? Interrupted drum - near end of cycle ? Drum inlet and heater plugged Plan was developed and revised over time ? Multi-functional team ? Input from many sources ? Refinery staff, other Phillips 66 refineries, Phillips 66 HQ, industry peers ? Refinery Leadership Team reviews ? Refinery Risk Reviews – RLT, ops, crafts, safety, technical ? Phillips 66 peer review – HQ plus refinery managers from 2 other sites. 6 ATTEMPTS TO GET FLOW INTO BOTTOM OF COKE DRUM ? Tried to get into bottom of drum for 5 days without success – Once steam was restored tried it via the normal line-up – Tried alternating water and steam, hammering the line as is typically done with