Gas reception terminal briefing document

Introduction

Some of the questions for the assignments relate to the hazards and risks from a new onshore gas
reception terminal to be located on the East coast of Australia. This briefing document provides
background information to those questions.

Gas (which is the primary product of the plant) will be brought to shore in a 400mm diameter
pipeline operating at 100barg. The gas enters a slugcatcher1 where the natural gas liquids (NGLs) are
separated from the gas. The gas leaving the slugcatcher will go for further processing. The NGLs
from the slugcatcher are sent to a stabilizer where they are separated into a mixed (propane and
butane) LPG product and stabilized condensate.

The LPG product is stored in 4 x 500 te capacity pressurized spheres. The spheres are protected from
fire by a water deluge system which is manually initiated from the control room.

The stabilised condensate is stored in 2 x 25m diameter, 10m height, floating roof atmospheric
storage tanks (each designed to contain up to 2,500te of condensate). Each tank is fitted with an
internal foam injection system designed to extinguish a full surface fire. The system is manually
initiated from the control room. Each tank is contained within a square bund (40m x 40m). There is
no fixed fire system to extinguish a bund fire.

Both products will be transferred offsite by pipelines to a nearby refinery for further processing.

A fire and gas detection will be installed across the whole site, so that any leak or fire will be rapidly
detected.

The site layout is shown in Figure 1.

The PFD of the stabilization unit is shown in Figure 2, please note this does not show the pipeline
entering the slugcatcher or the gas pipeline leaving the slugcatcher; neither of these is relevant to
the assignment questions.

1 https://www.enggcyclopedia.com/2012/02/slug-catcher/
 Slugcatcher

Condensate
Storage

Control
Room
and Admin
Building
Stabilisation Unit
Maintenance
Yard
20m
LPG Storage

Figure 1 Site Layout.

 Condenser E103

PRV1 Reflux Drum

Slugcatcher V101 LICA1 To flare V103
LIC2

HC1 ESDV3

ESDV1
CV5
CV6 LPG to storage

MP steam Stabiliser Column

TIC1
Supply
CV2 V102

CV1 Feed Preheater PIC1

E101

MP steam
Reboiler E102 Supply
CV4

FrC1 CV3

ESDV2

Condensate to storage

Figure 2 PFD Stabilisation Process

The slugcatcher (V101) is designed to remove liquids from the gas during normal pipeline operation
and to receive a slug of liquid when the pipeline is pigged. Unstabilised condensate is transferred
from the slugcatcher under level control to a preheater (E101) where the temperature is raised to
100oC. From there it transfers to the stabilizer column V102.

The column overheads are condensed by a water-cooled condenser (E103) and collect in the reflux
drum (V103). A portion of the overheads is returned to the column as reflux. The reflux flow rate is
set manually. The LPG product is transferred to the storage spheres under reflux drum level control
via CV6. Note that the maximum flowrate through CV6 (i.e. when the valve is fully open) is limited
to 70% of the total feed flowrate into V102.

The column bottoms are heated by a reboiler (E102) which maintains the column pressure at 10barg.
Condensate leaves the column under flow ratio control. This sets the amount of stabilised
condensate (C5+ components) leaving the bottom of the column to equal the same amount of C5+
components which enter the column. The condensate is subsequently cooled and passes to the
stabilised condensate storage tanks.

A pressure relief valve (PRV1) on the stabilizer is set to operate at a pressure of 15barg, which
discharges to a flare system.
In the event of a low liquid level in the slugcatcher an alarm will sound in the control room.
Operating instructions require the operator to initiate a unit Emergency Shutdown which closes
valves in the slugcatcher liquid outlet (ESDV1) and product lines to storage (ESDV2 and ESDV3).

All alarms and emergency shutdown systems are proof tested every 6 months.

Personnel distribution

During working hours (08:00 to 18:00 Monday to Friday), there will be 20 people inside the control
room and admin building and 10 people working outside at the maintenance yard. At other times
there will be 10 people in the control room and admin building and no one at the maintenance yard.
All workers work 8 hours per day and 240 days per year.

A small village of 100 people is located 100 m directly to the South of the site. A second larger
residential population of 1000 people is located at a distance of 500m directly to the West of the site.
Residential population may be assumed to be present all the time. At all times, 10% of the
population can be assumed to be outdoors and 90% indoors.

Table 1 shows the separation distances (in metres) between sources of events and potential target
populations.

Table 1

Distances (from event centre)

North South
Stabilisation
To target location (nearest point) LPG Storage Condensate Condensate
Unit
storage storage

Control Room and Admin Building 60 60 85 120

Maintenance Yard 40 60 70 100
Village to South 150 180 170 130
Village to West 300 240 240 240
Separation Distances in metres
Meteorological Data

The average temperature is 20oC. The dominant average wind speed is 7m/s with D atmospheric
stability. Atmospheric stability F also occurs for 20% of the time, with a corresponding wind speed
of 2m/s. Table 2 gives the annual average probabilities of wind from each direction. Table 2 Wind
direction probabilities
Direction (from) N E S W
Probability 20% 30% 15% 35%

Risk Studies Data

The following data has been gathered in preparation for conducting various risk studies on the
facility.

Parameter Value Units Comments

Failure rate of relief valve 0.01 per year 80% lifts lights, 20% stuck in closed position
Failure rate of level indicator 0.02 per year 50% reads high/low
Failure rate of pressure indicator 0.01 per year 50% reads high/low
Failure rate of temperature indicator 0.01 per year 50% reads high/low
Failure rate of alarm 0.05 per year 100% fails to sound
Failure rate of flow ratio controller 0.005 per year 50% adjusts ratio too high/low
Failure rate of control valve 0.03 per year 50% fail in open/closed position
Failure rate of emergency shut down valve 0.1 per year 50% fail in open/closed position
Operator fails to initiate safety system 0.001 per demand

Frequency of major fire in condensate storage area 2.E-04 per tank year 90% are full surface tank fires, 10% are full surface bund fires
Reliability of foam injection system 0.99 Conditional on being initiated

Reliability of water deluge system 0.95 Conditional on being initiated

Table 3 Fault and Event Tree Data

 Table 4 QRA Event Data
Hazard Range

Frequency
Event Comments
per year
Effect description Effect Effect Distance
value Units (m)
Jet fire from LPG pipework failure 7.0E-03 Thermal radiation 35 kW/m2 65 Flame length = 61m
12.6 80
D7 210 Cloud width = 100m
weather
Vapor cloud from LPG pipework failure 3.0E-03 Vapor cloud dispersion LFL
F2 790 Cloud width = 700m
weather
50% 510 Assume 50% lethality applies to both indoor
LPG Bleve fireball 1.0E-05 Thermal radiation 10% lethality 680 and outdoor populations and 10% and 1%
1% 840 lethalities apply only to outdoor populations.
Stabilisation Unit VCE 3.0E-04 Blast overpressure 300 mbar 70
70 125

Thermal radiation - downwind 35 kW/m2 50

12.6 75
Condensate Tank Fire* 1.8E-04
Thermal radiation - all other wind 35 kW/m2 25 Average range for cross wind and up wind
directions 12.6 45 directions
Thermal radiation - downwind 35 kW/m2 80
12.6 120
Condensate Bund Fire* 2.0E-05
Thermal radiation - all other wind 35 kW/m2 45 Average range for cross wind and up wind
directions 12.6 60 directions
*Frequencies apply separately to both the North and South condensate tanks and bunds

Table 5 Vulnerability Data

Effect type Effect Level Range Fatality Rate Comments
Indoors Outdoors
Thermal radiation for pool and jet fires >35kW/m2 1 1 Applies to onsite and offsite populations
<35 kW/m2, >12.6kW/m2 0 0.1

Applies to onsite and offsite, indoor and

BLEVE Fireball >50% lethality 0.7 0.7 outdoor populations
Applies to onsite and offsite outdoor
<50% lethality, >10% lethality 0 0.3 populations

Applies to onsite and offsite outdoor

Flash fire <=LFL 0 1 populations
Blast overpressure on onsite populations >300mar 0.3 0 Control room designed to resist 200mbar
<300mbar, >70mbar 0.1 0 overpressure.
Blast overpressure on offsite populations >300mar 0.7 0 Domestic houses
<300mbar, >70mbar 0.3 0