Gas leak from high pressure gas compressor recycle line

Cause & Consequence

• Uncontrolled release of a flammable gas or liquid

Incident Location

Fixed Installation

Incident Activity

Production operations

Specific Incident Equipment

Gas Compression [GC]: HP compressor recycle line

Lessons Identified

Although this was a repeat of a similar incident which occurred in 2011, the recommendations from that event failed to prevent the second failure.

The assumption that the H2S scavenger wasn’t a factor in the first incident’s corrosion led to the perception that the failure of the second carbon steel pipe would take longer to occur when in fact, the use of a quill injection point has led to overdosing of H2S Scavenger, most likely making the corrosion worse.

Incident Recommendations

Carry out routine “Time of Flight Diffraction” inspection testing on a quarterly basis until the pipe work is changed out to duplex steel

H2S scavenger should be changed out for one that does not break down into organic acids at process conditions.

Change the quill Injector to an atomiser type, minimising the chance of overdosing Scavenger in the future