Montrose and Leading Petrochemical Manufacturer Team Up for Improved LDAR Compliance Tagging and Process Improvement at Mississippi River Refinery

Opportunity

A large oil refinery located along the Mississippi River West of New Orleans contracted Montrose for two separate but related projects to provide improved LDAR compliance tagging personnel, processes and procedures. The projects consisted of a new unit inventory, a “tag for tag” swap – tagging equipment with new tags, changing old tags to new tag numbers, and tagging outside interconnecting pipelines in pipe racks at E/P units.

Challenge

Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR) tagging projects are challenging and demanding. The scope of work included tag-for-tag swaps, field validation and remediation, plus new unit inventory flagging, tagging and documenting.

Solution

Montrose team members reviewed regulatory and site-specific requirement sand created a systematic plan, reviewing highlighted P&IDs, quality assurance and quality control requirements, and phased timelines. The new unit inventory process consisted of flagging/tagging, documenting, QA/QC and route sequencing, and field walks were conducted with P&IDs for units uploaded to tablets with the MEL master equipment list from the database. Teams conducted the tagging and documenting process, which identified missing tags on regulated components, replaced missing tags, investigated untagged components and held weekly QA/QC reviews.

The tag for tag swaps ensured that all equipment was tagged with new tags, and old tags were changed to new tag numbers. The comprehensive reporting procedure for tagging led to a deliverable of a comprehensive component listing final report per unit with detailed counts and product data. The data was documented using the client’s proprietary system to document all LDAR program data, and was used in ongoing QA/QC review process.