During the next 2019 IFS Technical Conference on 4 & 5 June 2019 in Brussels, UreaKnowHow.com will present “The principles and applications of a directory of urea safety incidents, with case studies”.

In September 2018, AmmoniaKnowHow.com and UreaKnowHow.com introduced FIORDA to the fertiliser industry. FIORDA is the Fertiliser Industry Operational Risks Database (www.fiorda.eu), a cloud based set of risk registers for ammonia and urea plants. FIORDA’s mission is to improve safety and reliability performance of fertiliser plants by collecting and exchanging process safety data among the participating companies and acting as focal point for coordination and management of process safety data collection within the fertiliser industry.

FIORDA includes a Risk Register “Safety Hazards in Urea Plants”. This paper provides the detailed analysis of these safety hazards: In which plant sections do these safety hazards occur, which hazards have the highest risk factor and an overview of the most critical safety hazards is provided. Most safety hazards in a urea plant involve a release of toxic ammonia of which 90% can occur suddenly, without any pre-warning. Other main safety hazards are crystallisation risks, vibration risks, backflow risks, hydrogen explosion risks, ammonium carbamate corrosion risks and corrosion under insulation / atmospheric corrosion risks. The paper includes the most important prevention and mitigation measures for each of these main safety hazards. Even if one would implement all recommended prevention and mitigation measures, a significant number of the safety hazards would still remain a high-risk factor. This means continuous attention and awareness of these high risk safety hazards including its prevention and mitigation measures is very important for all people working in a urea plant.

This paper highlights various case studies how FIORDA as a directory of urea safety incidents can serve a urea producer to realise higher safety standards and reliability figures, such as:

1. Safety Hazards of ammonia pipelines in urea plants: More attention required

2. Safety hazards during cleaning of prilling towers and granulators: Share for Safety

3. Risk Register of a Urea Reactor: Learn Why… instead of only What…

4. High conductivity in a falling film high pressure carbamate condenser: Shut down the plant ?

5. Flush leak detection circuit with steam / condensate yes or no?

6. Protect urea synthesis equipment from corrosion under insulation: A company has no memory!

Click here for the complete agenda and registration