Processing, April 2020

OIL GAS How optical gas imaging tools promote a culture of safety Hazardous gas visualization provides actionable shareable detail for personnel By Craig ONeill FLIR hen developing or strengthening a culture of safety in an organization the word culture should bear as much emphasis as safety Without organizational dedication W safety protocols or procedures can risk seeming ancillary to the operations shared objective when ultimately safety must be a core value of any operation dealing with potentially hazardous gases Buy in from all levels helps avoid weak links where a serious lapse in safety might occur Safety protects not only the practitioner of safety but that employees co workers and others as well Upstream and downstream oil and gas operations along with power plants and other industrial facilities should partner with technology providers that emphasize safety Organizations that work with gas that can cause injury should seek to integrate e ective and e cient technologies that ensure safe operational practices Recent advancements in Optical Gas Imaging OGI technology o er companies in a number of industries the opportunity to improve safety and bolster a culture of safety throughout the organization Implications of safety equipment for culture Many common safety practices depend upon safety equipment that operates solely within an area of relative unsafety A wearable gas monitor plays an important function in protecting workers but it only warns of a danger once the person wearing it is standing in a cloud of gas ere are several other technologies that allow operators to nd an unsafe condition within a piece of equipment but few of these operate until the user is within that unsafe condition is holds true for low tech but prevalent safety tools ese technologies and their results could send a cultural message that some risk is acceptable and perhaps inevitable contradicting the message of safety Just as certain safety tools carry an apparent inevitability of personal risk so do some routine safety tasks A prime example from the upstream oil and gas sector is the practice of tank gauging Employees must scale a ladder and walk out on a catwalk in order to extend a dipstick into the liquid e worker stands directly over a tank where a potentially high concentration of gas emissions may lurk undetected Downstream the risk pro le changes Many of the hydrocarbon gases in re neries are more toxic than those present at upstream facilities As a result an employee who unknowingly enters an unsafe area could face more pronounced negative consequences or negative e ects in less time In this context wearable gas monitors are a prominent method for detecting unsafe gas levels Even the most common safety monitoring equipment invites a level of uncertainty A wearable gas detector begins to beep Is the wearer at the edge of a gas cloud or at its center In which direction should the wearer go to get out of the hazardous area More importantly for remedying unsafe conditions where is the exact location of a leak While these technologies may be good at detecting the presence of gas they have their drawbacks Using them could encourage to some extent a cultural feeling that close enough may be good enough 28 Processing APRIL 2020 Images and videos from OGI devices such as the FLIR GF77 can provide a fact base for troubleshooting safety and operations issues Images courtesy of FLIR