Bassey O. Bassey^*

Cranfield University, Cranfield, England, United Kingdom

Tochukwu O. Ajare

Coventry University, Coventry, England, United Kingdom

^*Corresponding Author and Speaker

Any business running a process plant aims to maximize asset uptime, reduce maintenance costs and avoid unplanned outages. Plant owners and operators are under increasing pressure to achieve greater productivity more efficiently with fewer resources. As industrial organizations expand and optimize operations to meet customer demand in domestic and international markets, they must also maintain a commitment to consistently optimize asset integrity.

Operations personnel are typically concerned with meeting production targets while maintenance teams primarily focus on minimizing breakdowns. Striking a balance between these goals has remained a major root of occupational conflict in most process facilities, thereby threatening both process and personal safety.

This paper will elaborate these areas of conflicting interests using a petroleum transportation and storage facility in the Eastern Niger Delta area of Nigeria as a case study, discuss how they were progressively addressed and highlight the significant outcomes.

One of the key strategies in fostering the needed operations-maintenance synergy (OMS) was the appointment of an interface coordinator from each technical department; existing personnel actively involved in field work and having firsthand knowledge of equipment breakdowns and/or malfunctions. Each coordinator performed facility inspections and post installation and/or maintenance job monitoring surveys independently, then a combined gap analysis on a quarterly basis. 

The model adopted by this year-long project, which led to evolving a workplace where maintenance, operations and HSE functions formed sustainable partnerships for production excellence, will also be illustrated and described. The results were observed to include improved data mining, efficient maintenance planning and execution, prompt response to faults, enhanced asset integrity, increased productivity and continuous improvement in the process safety management system as demonstrated by reduced audit queries. The lessons learnt and subsequent recommendations are hoped to contribute towards addressing asset deterioration, workplace conflict, process safety accidents and related negatives in the process industry upon diligent application.

About the Speaker

Bassey Bassey is a PhD student of Energy and Power at Cranfield University, Cranfield, United Kingdom. He was previously an Hourly Paid Lecturer at Coventry University, UK, upon graduation there with an MSc in Petroleum and Environmental Technology in 2017. He had worked as an Operations/Research/Maintenance Engineer for Northwest Petroleum and Gas Company Limited, Calabar, Nigeria, for five years; during which he was the flow assurance team deputy lead and facilities inspection coordinator. Bassey also holds a BEng in Petroleum Engineering from Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Nigeria. He is an active member of the InstMC, NACE, ICorr, ASCE, Energy Institute, IMarEST, ASTM, SPE and several other international professional societies. With over 20 conference and journal papers to his credit; his research interests are flow assurance, asset integrity, process optimization and safety, and engineering sustainability.

Don't miss Bassey's session Improved reliability and productivity at oil storage and offloading facilities on Wednesday 30 October at 15:10. Register for your free badge today.