[303] Liquefied petroleum gas plant maintenance: a case study of gangway failure analysis

Complex equipment fails from time to time, subsequently leading to losses in production output and hence requiring the repair and replacement of equipment components. In order to reduce the number of frequent failures, periodic inspection of equipment can be conducted to identify and rectify any minor defect that may otherwise cause failure. This paper investigates several failures on a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) gangway in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing plant. The plant is observed during operation and a weekly inspection of the gangway is conducted prior to ship loading to meet marine, operation and maintenance requirements. During the facility operations, a number of issues related to the reliability and safety of operating the LPG gangway have been identified. An evaluation of all safety, operability and maintainability issues associated with the LPG gangway is conducted. Some of these incidents involved the gangway impacting ships and causing damage to the gangway and ships. A root cause analysis (RCA) approach is used to analyse historical failure and maintenance data. Reliability and downtime analysis is conducted in order to determine the failure pattern of the gangway system. A reliability model is proposed in an attempt to determine improvement and deterioration, safe and reliable operation of the LPG gangway.