(128b) Gas Piping and Equipment Commissioning Risks"10 Key Things Everyone Should Know"

There have been a number of devastating incidents related to natural gas piping system and the start-up and commissioning of equipment. It's very rarely that an incident occurs when equipment is at the ready and in some normal operating routine. The vast majority of incidents are directly related to some maintenance activity or some commissioning event that had gone horribly wrong.

This paper seeks to point out very important issues related to natural gas piping repairs that few maintenance and or engineering personnel know about. These are lessons learned from actual incidents. The items covered will reference NFPA 54, (The National Fuel Gas Code), and along with other specific equipment codes. We will also present a number of tips and tricks for equipment start-up and commissioning that we have developed and are not available anywhere in the public domain or in codes.

Anyone involved in plant maintenance and or the repair of gas fired equipment will find something useful in this presentation. You will leave with practical tips that can be taken back and implemented immediately to enhance the safety of your organization.

The author has focused this presentation into 10 key risk control issues related to natural gas piping repairs and equipment commissioning.