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Poisoning and Injury From Chemicals Deposited Inside a Refinery Vessel

While manually cleaning out a high pressure sour gas field separator vessel, a refinery worker was injured by inhaling noxious gases. The problem arose when an unexpectedly thick deposit of sediment was encountered on the vessel bottom. During cleanout, noxious gases adsorbed deep within the sediment layer were released when the sediment became disturbed. These gases had been deposited within or upon particles of earth and sediment at high pressures during normal vessel operation. Unfortunately, the release occurred in the immediate vicinity of workers inside of the vessel. APTECH reviewed the incident documentation and prepared an opinion concerning the origin of the noxious gases and whether or not they could be considered to be pollutants.

Satish Almaula		Plant failure and root cause analysis; process and design engineering analysis; process technology development and testing; plant engineering, operations, maintenance and safety management; plant and process control system management.

Kimble Clark, Ph.D.		Failure analysis, heat transfer & thermodynamics, process plant equipment failures & explosions, fuel science, combustion, industrial fires and explosions.

Eric Sullivan, P.E.		Metallurgy, welding, failure analysis, fire and explosion investigations, equipment, piping.

Steven Kohan, Ph.D.		Chemical engineering, refinery processes, toxic fume generation.