Fred Mackie, senior consultant for Solomon Associates, was quoted today in Arabian Business on the topic of refinery and chemical plant maintenance. You can read the full article, titled “Clean bill of health,” here.

To provide further context, here are excerpts from Mackie’s email interview with writer Abdelghani Henni:

What are the most common problems or failures that refineries and petrochemical plants face?

Failures generally occur in rotating and fixed equipment. Both are managed through a site’s reliability and inspection efforts. Emphasis is placed on health and safety, environmental impact and, lastly, lost production.

Which equipment tends to need the most frequent maintenance and why?

Fixed plant equipment, by and large, takes the most ongoing effort. Emphasis is placed on protecting against loss of containment. Ongoing inspections and tests account for the majority of a plant’s maintenance expenditures and loss of production availability.

Taking into consideration the difficult environmental conditions in the Middle East, are there different procedures or protocols that should be followed when conducting maintenance in the region?

The harsh environment in the Middle East has a tremendous impact on maintenance in several ways.

First, execution of the work is more difficult due to the high temperatures and impacts of dust.

Second, the protection of equipment by design and maintenance protocols is more complex due to the impacts of heat and dust.

Lastly, the storage of equipment and spare parts is more complex due to the elements. These factors all affect the level of maintenance, the efficiency of execution, and the effectiveness of the work after it is executed.

What are the most important things to measure to catch problems before failures occur?

The ongoing checking of all operating parameters, predictors of impending failure and performance degradation are critical in catching failures before they occur. Tools such as vibration monitoring are very important. In addition, ongoing programs such as the many inspection techniques used to project pending loss of containment are essential. Plants have become very rigorous in their efforts to prevent loss of containment through the use of technology.

What’s the average cost of maintaining a refinery or petrochemical plant? How much time and labor is generally spent on maintenance annually?

The average cost ranges from $10 to $60 million US, with between 0.3 to 1.8 million work hours.

Should plants focus most on predictive, proactive or reactive maintenance, and why?

Better performing plants are those that are disciplined in the application of effective predictive and preventive maintenance. Traditionally, reactive maintenance is executed at a 30-50 percent premium when compared to planned and scheduled maintenance, so direct cost savings can be significant.

And direct costs are only part of the picture. In addition to the higher execution costs of reactive maintenance, there are generally unwanted consequences associated with reactive maintenance. These consequences include expensive damage to equipment, loss of containment, and unplanned loss of production.

In most cases, these consequential costs far exceed the direct costs associated with reactive maintenance.