Addressing Aging Processes and Equipment

Number of the fertilizers plants across the globe have been installed and are in operation since many decades. The operation with the old equipment and conventional process techniques is being managed coupled with budget constraints. Hence the old aged plant equipment have high risk of failure under the shed of outdated processes, and may cause severe damage to the plant assets as well as to human. Consequently, one has to bear more and repeated maintenance cost and regular replacements of equipment.

Fatima Fert Plant (Previously Daud Hercules) also commissioned in 1969 and is in operation to date. Dealing with the challenge of old aged equipment and process techniques, very strict and robust reliability plans have been established and implemented to inspect the equipment with the advanced ultrasonic techniques and to make sure that the asset is in operation under controlled parameters. Based upon the finding of inspections, 10 year rolling plan have been developed to replace the equipment that are prone to failure.

The paper will be providing the details of the challenges and risks faced due to old age equipment and the way forward to mitigate and control that risk with optimized budget utilization.