Vipul Gupta - MRPL
The 3.00 MMTPA Delayed Coker Unit (DCU), a secondary processing facility of the Phase-III Upgradation and Expansion Project of MRPL (Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd, a subsidiary of ONGC) was commission in April 2014. The unit which was a part of the refinery up-gradation cum expansion project operates with four drums and two heaters and uses technology supplied by Lummus Technology. As the unit operates in batch mode (which is made continuous by operation of 4 nos. coke drum), it poses a great challenge for Inspection and maintenance to ensure mechanical availability.
Subsequent to commissioning of the unit, there have been multiple instances of failures which resulted in un-planned outages of the unit. Major instance include:
- Bulging and sagging of the heater tubes.
- Failure of fractionator chimney tray over flow down pipe and damage to the charge pump suction strainer.
- Failures of chute area wear plate exposing the concrete structure underneath.
- Failure of small bore tapping connected to lethal service piping.
- Repeated failure of piping in the cutting deck platform.
Learning from the failures encountered, corrective and preventive action taken will be the essence of this paper.
Vipul Gupta is Senior Engineer, Inspection, Technical Services for Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited, A subsidiary of ONGC, Mangalore, India. He has started his career as Graduate Engineer Trainee and is associated with the\ncompany from past 07 years. He has experience in hydro processing units, power \nplant and has been handling inspection activities in DCU since pre-commissioning. He enjoys travelling, driving and hotography. Vipul Gupta is Senior Engineer, Inspection, Technical Services for Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited, A subsidiary of ONGC, Mangalore, India. He has started his career as Graduate Engineer Trainee and is associated with the company from past 07 years. He has experience in hydro processing units, power plant and has been handling inspection activities in DCU since pre-commissioning. He enjoys travelling, driving and photography.