(77a) Protection of Permanent Buildings at An Existing Upstream Oil and Gas Facility

Operators, both upstream and downstream are needing to re-evaluate protection for permanent buildings against multiple process threats ? vapor cloud explosion, jet fires, pool fires and toxic releases, if relevant. This paper describes an approach, consistent with the near final update to API752, for an upstream facility located in Alaska.

The paper describes the methodology to select events for analysis, calculation assumptions, and shows typical outputs. A special aspect of the study is that most process facilities are located inside large enclosed modules for weather protection. A single facility might encompass 20-40 process modules. This leads to some differences for consequence analysis compared with typical downstream facilities located outside. Consequences were predicted in PHAST and this was followed by full geometrical analysis to establish peak pressure loads and thermal impacts in an Excel sheet with extensive embedded visual basic coding.

The final results were all accumulated and displayed on local geographic maps showing curves consistent with BP's explosion standard for personnel protection.