Turnarounds are scheduled periods where an entire plant is shut down for routine inspection and maintenance.

 

While they are incredibly important for maintaining the overall health of a facility, turnarounds can be extremely costly in terms of downtime and lost production.

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A turnaround inspection program typically involves several steps:

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1. Pre-turnaround planning

2. Pre-turnaround inspections

3. Turnaround execution

4. Post-turnaround documentation

 

Sentinel Integrity Solutions provides comprehensive turnaround services. Sentinel has an extremely innovative approach to our turnaround inspection services. We provide the highest quality turnaround solutions while reducing a facility’s turnaround contract inspection costs by 33%. We can provide you with leading oil company references upon your request, so you can be assured we are not wasting your time or money

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All turnaround inspection teams are not created equal, and we pride ourselves in proving this.

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Refractory Inspection & Testing

 

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Turnaround Planning

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Turnaround planning should begin at least 9 to 18 months before the turnaround is to take place. All inspectors involved in the planning should have extensive experience with pre-turnaround activity planning and logistics. Likewise, they should be certified under API 510, API 570, and API 653.

During pre-turnaround inspection planning, several critical elements must be identified and defined. First, a list of all of the areas and equipment that are tagged for inspection should be produced. Second, the planned inspection activities to be performed should be identified in detail, and a specific methodology should be assigned to each. At this time, all relevant inspection and testing disciplines that are anticipated to fully evaluate all of the equipment to be inspected need to be listed and appropriate NDT applications need to be designated.  For more information around planning give our office a call and someone will assist you.

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Pre-Turnaround Inspections

Pre-turnaround inspections are an important part of any turnaround, and should be completed during the turnaround planning process.

 

A proper pre-turnaround inspection can save a facility a substantial amount of money during the turnaround in the long run. The best time to begin a pre-turnaround inspection is at least three months to a year before the turnaround is scheduled to start.

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Turnaround Inspections

Inspections are an integral part of all turnarounds and should be conducted for a number of reasons. The main reason is that, without high quality inspections, damaged equipment may continue to go unnoticed and eventually fail unexpectedly during regular operations. This not only could be detrimental due to the lost production during a potential shutdown, but it could cause a significant safety incident at the facility.

There are seven critical elements to the success of any turnaround inspection. These are:

1. Safety

2. Final planning

3. Tracking

4. Record keeping

5. Having qualified personnel

6. Cooperation and coordination between operators

7. Having no weather related issues

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Post-Turnaround Documentation

Once the turnaround is complete, and all of the inspections, repairs, and replacements have been performed, facility operators will have tremendous amounts of data on their hands. This data needs to be documented and organized properly to ensure that future work is performed on the right equipment at the right times. Post-turnaround documentation needs to contain technical details on every activity that was conducted on the equipment during the turnaround. The kinds of things that should be documented include: inspections, maintenance, repairs, or replacement, non-typical safety issues, and forecast items.

There are several key components that should be documented within the final inspection report. These are based on the condition of the equipment/piping circuit and the activities that were conducted on the equipment during the turnaround. A few examples are:

1. The first involves documenting all components that were inspected and the findings from the inspection. This should be summarized to capture all of the inspection activities, and any mechanical activates required to facilitate the inspection. This portion should also explain why the equipment/piping circuit was deemed suitable for continued service upon completion.

2. All areas that required repair/replacement will require documenting. All NDE techniques performed should be documented in the report as well. In some cases a MOC (Management of change) will be required. The justification for the change, and details regarding the change itself shall be captured.

3. The condition of the equipment/piping circuit should be captured in great detail. The detail should capture all the required quantification and description of any damage discovered on every component. Additionally the results from discovery type NDE that was performed to quantify any damage.

4. Any recommendations that were either deferred or could not be completed during the turnaround should be captured as a forecast item. Any items that were evaluated on a unit run premise, and will require attention during the next turnaround should be captured as well.

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Turnaround QA/QC Services

Performing Turnaround QA/QC provides several benefits to an organization. When equipment has properly undergone both quality assurance and quality control, it has a far lower chance of having defects and is less susceptible to failures. If a process or part has undergone proper QA/QC testing, clients can be more confident that that part or process will operate reliably and hold up to their standards.

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