Ask any reliability engineer or maintenance manager at a major refinery about their key priorities, and it’s likely that safety, minimizing downtime costs and safeguarding the environment will be high on the list. Shortfalls in any of these areas can have major human, financial and environmental impacts. Out of the many, two references re-iterate the value of safety and cost savings:
- In its 2021 safety report, the International Organization of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) reported increases in both fatalities and injuries from 2020 levels, with 20 fatalities.
- According to a 2022 uptake.com article, “the average facility in oil and gas loses 32 hours of productivity each month to unplanned downtime, at a cost of $220,000 per hour.”
A single failure in a critical component can lead to a major incident. Even with fail-safes and redundancy built in, multiple simultaneous failures can still trigger an incident.
Industrial pumps perform a core role in oil, gas and chemical production. They have many moving parts that are subject to the stresses and environmental factors that can lead to wear or corrosion-related failures.
Refineries and plants are growing larger and more complex. At the same time, environmental, regulatory, and business pressures are continually increasing. In this environment, maintaining a safe, economical, and sustainable operation becomes ever more challenging and critical. Preventing and managing wear and corrosion in pumps is a key element of this challenge.
This article looks at how LOCTITE® solutions help reliability engineers and maintenance managers minimize the risk of pump failures and reduce unplanned downtime, improve safety, reduce costs and avoid environmental impacts.
