Relief System Design Revalidation Warranted during Current Pandemic

Numerous operating companies globally are faced with major unparalleled challenges during these disruptive times. Companies are taking radical actions to reduce capital and operational expenditure. One common action taken to limit the spread of the virus is reduction in number of on-site personnel or “only essential to operations” personnel to be on site. As the current wave is looking more ominous compared to what we saw few months back, one can expect these measures getting further harder and stricter. But at the same time, impact of such actions on process safety must be understood. API Standard 521 allows credit for operator intervention and administrative controls to reduce likelihood of overpressure scenarios from occurring. The actions taken during current pandemic can certainly overburden operators jeopardizing administrative controls and compromising overpressure protection. This presentation dives deep into relief system design where administrative control and operator intervention credits have possibly been taken during original design and sheds light on the scenarios needing re-evaluation.