Maintenance Operations and its Management in Oil Industry in Kuwait

Journal of Environmental Treatment Techniques

2020, Volume 8, Issue 4, Pages: 1563-1567

J. Environ. Treat. Tech.

ISSN: 2309-1185

Journal web link: http://www.jett.dormaj.com

https://doi.org/10.47277/JETT/8(4)1567

Maintenance Operations and its Management in

Oil Industry in Kuwait

Hesham Almomani *, Abdurahman Hamad Aldaihani

Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, the Hashemite University, Jordan

MPW, Kuwait

Received: 06/05/2020

Accepted: 27/09/2020

Published: 20/12/2020

Abstract

The maintenance in oil area need to undertake entire shutdowns together with generic refinery turn-around, unit shutdowns on a

full accountability foundation and Scaffolding services. The in-house equipment and equipment: the in-house Maintenance workshop

facility ought to be completely outfitted with lathe machines, shaping machine, hole spindle lathe machine, horizontal boring machine,

radial drilling machine, pipe threading machine, valve lapping machine, mechanical seal lapping machine, welding computing

device and all sorts of specialized warmness exchanger re-tubing gear and tools. Maintenance operations in this zone face

many troubles in management, price and technical problems. This study aims to study the and count the failures occurred in equipments

of Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) in 2019, and study the maintenance strategies used in petroleum industry in the Kuwait state, a

maintenance programs or steps will be suggested and investigated in order to improve the maintenance operations. Availability of

devices are calculated depending on downtime of the devices at KOC. The data were collected about failures frequency occurred for the

KOC company equipments. Most of oil equipments have good availability but in the case of KOC four devices have availability less

than 90% which means more failure and downtime, the company adopted a Zero S/D PM Strategy or Philosophy which decreasing

failures by 75% and improve the availability of KOC devices. Planning and management of maintenance and monitoring operations in

any company decreasing failure frequency of equipments and so downtime of equipments which improves the equipments availability.

Keywords: Oil sector, Maintenance, Availability, KOC, Downtime and failures

and calcareous areas as nicely as drilled wells and developed

Introduction

fields and produced oil and natural gas. The Kuwait National

Petroleum Company used to be accountable for refining and

manufacturing fuel and advertising the petroleum merchandise

in the neighborhood market. The Petrochemical Industries

Company performed the manufacturing and advertising of

fertilizers and petrochemical products.

The National Petroleum Company succeeded all through

the yr 2010 in signing two contracts that are very 14 Sheikh

Ahmed Al Abdullah and Ali Al Nahimi reducing the

inauguration ribbon for the first stage of the Al Khafanji Field

improvement vital with regard to herbal fuel for a complete

price estimated at 373 million dinars. The first challenge was

once signed with Dailem International Ltd for organizing the

fourth fuel manufacturing line at the gasoline liquefaction plant

of the Al Ahmedi Port refinery (Stevens, 2008; Al-Azmi,

Oil grew to become the solely count on the minds of the

Kuwaiti authorities and human beings since 1913. The first

negotiations on Oil have been headed through Sheikh Mubarak

Al Sabah and the British Consul General in the Gulf Sir Percy

Cox. A sure duration of time surpassed and the Kuwait Oil

Company used to be established. It commenced its works in

Bahra area to the north from Joun Kuwait. The preliminary

geological survey commenced with the drilling of the first

exploratory nicely in 1936. However, this properly did no

longer supply hopes for business production; therefore, the

search persevered elsewhere. In 1938, in Burgan region,

which was once the different site, the drilling operations led

to discovering a sand nicely with oil at a depth of 3700 feet.

Production exams confirmed that this website online was

once noticeably encouraging. This nicely was once follows by

using eight different wells drilled between 1938 and 1942 AD.

Hopes for oil had been confirmed. Due to the Second World

War, the manufacturing stopped till November 1945. The

oil manufacturing was once resumed at a fee of thirty thousand

barrels per day. Commercial shipments commenced in June

2014). A number of different maintenance approaches, on

occasion referred to as techniques or philosophies, are

presently handy for utility in all manufacturing methods. The

necessary traits of these upkeep strategies are pretty similar,

however their focuses are different. Reliability-centered

upkeep (RCM) originated in the aviation industry, and is

centered on tools reliability (Tétreault, 1995). Total productive

upkeep (TPM) originated in the meeting line industry, and is

centered on enhancing the exceptional of humans and tactics

946. The explorations developed and commercial enterprise

thrived. The corporation brought to drilling and extraction new

things to do such as refining crude oil and consequently its

endeavor accelerated quite (Stevens, 2008; Al-Azmi, 2014).

The Kuwait Petroleum Company grew to be the founding

contributor in the International Organization for Power

Development. During the equal year, (1980), the Kuwait Oil

Company carried out exploration and survey operations in wild

(

Tétreault, 1995). Business-centered protection originated in

the procedure industry, and focuses on performing inexpensive

preservation to acquire enterprise dreams (Brune, 2003).

Maintenance of bodily property has been wanted ever due to

Corresponding author: Hesham Almomani, Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The Hashemite University,

E-mail: heshamalmomani@hu.edu.jo

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2020, Volume 8, Issue 4, Pages: 1563-1567

the fact that human beings started out constructing them. The

want for protection administration was once brought on via an

expand in the number, size, and complexity of assets, and the

extended specialization of protection duties to be performed.

All upkeep tactics or techniques use a quantity of fundamental

sorts or methods for every asset of the complete system.

Alsharhan and Nairn (1997) mentioned the important strategies

that can be utilized to the protection of the factors of a technical

system. The 4 methods that are most frequently used are

highlighted as follows: Operate to failure (OTF) – gear is run

till a failure occurs, when a substitute is normally performed.

This tactic is frequently the cheapest, on account that the full

layout lifestyles of the thing is utilized. But it is now not proper

exercise when the outcome of failure is severe, such as loss of

lifestyles or a most important launch of detrimental substances.

Time-based upkeep (TBM) – alternative or cleansing is carried

out at predetermined time or utilization intervals. This tactic is

regularly used for easy aspects that show off a particular wear-

out failure mode with a slender failure distribution. A downside

is that solely phase of the beneficial existence of aspects is truly

gadget graph challenges occur, mainly in heavy gear and

distinct functions the usage of large ability direct power

compressors used in oil industry.

Telford et al (2011) explored the current literature on the

improvement and purposes of CBM in the oil and fuel industry.

The current literature reinforces the truth that the position of

CBM is indispensable to the smooth, uninterrupted,

environment friendly and protected jogging of oil and gasoline

facilities. The complicated and built-in nature of the oil and fuel

services require precise and carefully organized CBM packages

with real-time situation monitoring statistics recording,

analysis, and choice making to facilitate an correct grasp of the

crucial preservation intervals. This in flip can promote

optimized utilization of plant gear with greater stages of sure

bet and safety.

Many companies are investigating the broader

implementation of automation to limit the range of personnel

required and the dangers they are subjected to in a bid to

enhance affectivity and minimize human error and risks. There

is additionally an enlarge in un-manned facilities, mainly in far

flung locations. These two traits will inevitably enlarge running

costs. From an funding perspective, the uncertainty in furnish

potential that buyers will be searching to low fee of

manufacturing and renovation operations to make sure the

protection of their funding (Treadgold, 2010) Due to these traits

and challenges, oil and gasoline businesses are searching to

optimize manufacturing (Elgsaeter et al., 2010) and enhance

asset integrity administration (Rahim, 2010). A high-quality

protection application is an integral and big aspect of operations

with many benefits, including; the discount of downtime due to

surprising tools failure, which improves reliability and

maintainability, growing tools availability and utilization.

Optimizing upkeep additionally improves the beneficial

lifestyles of equipment. Proactive or preventative renovation

utilized. Condition-based preservation (CBM)

– some

parameter that shows the circumstance of the tools is measured

constantly or periodically, and alternative is carried out when

the circumstance is no longer acceptable. Fault-finding

protection (FFM) – periodic tests are carried out to decide

whether or not the back-up equipment, redundant equipment,

or protecting gear is nonetheless wholly functional. If not,

restore or alternative is carried out (Alsharhan and Nairn,

997).

Literature Review

Many papers discussed in deep the maintenance operations

in oil and gas plants. Elwerfalli and Munive (2016) explored

the present literature on the improvement and functions of

CBM in the oil and fuel industry. The latest literature reinforces

the truth that the function of CBM is imperative to the smooth,

uninterrupted, environment friendly and secure jogging of oil

and fuel facilities. A new methodology for enhancing TAM

scheduling of oil and fuel plant life used to be introduced by

using Elwerfalli and Munive (2016).

(

PM) techniques are a fundamental aspect of a superb

renovation program.

The PM method recognized as condition-based renovation

(

CBM) presents a dynamic appreciation of gear situation whilst

in operation and is used to predict failure in mechanical

structures thru fault prognosis from circumstance monitoring

indicators the usage of diagnostics and prognostics (Heng,

If we limit downtimes and screw ups number, the reliability

of the device will be expanded and so greater manufacturing

low charges and extra reliability are achieved. Maintenance has

many varieties and it can be preventive or predictive and it is

aimed at making use of information of engineering and

protection competencies to make sure multiplied overall

performance and discount in their charge of failure.

Furthermore, this protection ought to consist of periodic

examination in phrases of ordinary stroll via to spot exchange

in working conditions, sounds or temperature; it additionally

consists of inspection programs, lubrications amongst others. A

high quality preventive preservation application will assist pick

out symptoms of gear that is about to fail. When accomplished

in many instances base on the tools method of that device, it

ought to forestall a catastrophic failure. Faults recognized all

through preventive upkeep are resolved throughout corrective

protection that wants the gear to be shutdown in most instances

009). CBM techniques are presently a essential focal point of

protection and protection administration lookup due to the

aforementioned traits and challenges, improved complexity in

industrial applied sciences (Swanson, 1997), and advances in

circumstance monitoring strategies that encompass the use of

on-line structures (Oberholster, 2009).

3 Methodology

The methodology followed in this study is about is

accumulating the required records from actual oil

manufacturing strategies and oil enterprise methods and on the

whole from the Kuwait Oil Company ( KOC) preservation

operations which will encompass all renovation operations for

tanks, pumps, pipelines and different services used in the

manufacturing of crude oil and associated operations (Al-

Azmi, 2014). From the company's figures and data, KOC's

personnel numbered 7, ninety four till the cease of fiscal 12

months 2012. About 80.2% of Kuwaitis versus a goal of 49.4%

per annum. (This wide variety does now not consist of clinical

and nursing staff). Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) launched the

Mobile Training Center in cooperation with an American

organization specializing in oil and gas, as properly as oil

subject offerings and complete assignment integration. KOC

(

Olose, 2016). As phase of the MRP program, deliberate

inspections on pipelines, vessels and constructions by way of

equipped inspectors need to be finished primarily based on their

preservation strategies. These ought to consist of degree one

and two inspections for corrosion on pipelines, vessels and

structures. The goal right here is to make certain equipments’

reliability and availability (Olose, 2016). Mitchell (2018)

furnished the technicians and engineers with some realistic

recommendation and guidelines that can be used in the subject

for widely wide-spread servicing, or when some ‘on the job’

has additionally prepared

application in cooperation with the greatest American

universities specializing in enterprise administration so that

a management improvement

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2020, Volume 8, Issue 4, Pages: 1563-1567

contributors can be recognized with the brand new

administration structures and current using abilities

The availability of KOC equipment by assuming that such

equipments work for 8 hours daily which means 2920 hrs. in

the year. Depending on this assumption and data collected the

availability of KOC equipments can be calculated and tabulated

in table 2 below. Figure 1 shows the availability of studied

devices at KOC company in 2019. It can be noticed that the

availability of oil company (KOC) is high for most of them with

exclusion of four devices that are: heater, CBCRU, Recycle

Pump and Manturbo CRU. To improve their availability, the

maintenance plan suggested by the KOC is Zero S/D PM

Strategy or Philosophy which is Preventive Maintenance

carried out by minimizing the Production Cut or in other word

maximizing the “Facility up Time” with prime focus on Safety,

Reliability & Integrity of Plant Equipment, Figure 2 shows the

flow chart of this PM philosophy (KOC, 2019). If such plan is

followed the availability of such devices will be improved to be

more than 95%.

(

Almunaifi, 2017).

Data Collected

The current applied maintenance technique followed in

KOC is Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) which

applied for critical/semi critical rotating equipment. The

Availability values calculated for direct indicator of the asset

performance are presented here. Increased maintenance focus

on the less available equipment will be helpful to reduce

production loss, thus improving the operation efficiency (KOC,

109).

Table 1: EK-I, Equipment Failures % (KOC, 2019)

Equipment name

Heater

CB CRU

Percentage of failure

19%

17%

14%

11%

Table 2: EK-I, Equipment availability hours (KOC, 2019)

Recycle Pump

Equipment name

Heater

CB CRU

Availability (hrs/year)

2365.2

2423.6

2511.2

2598.8

2657.2

2715.6

2774

Manturbo CRU

RUSTON Turbine

VSM Pump

Recycle Pump

DSL Train

Manturbo CRU

RUSTON Turbine

VSM Pump

Wash water pump

Effluent water dispatch pump

Air compressor

Desalted feed pump

LP wet separator

Effluent water feed pump

HP wet separator

Transit pump

DSL Train

Wash water pump

Effluent water dispatch pump

Air compressor

Desalted feed pump

LP wet separator

Effluent water feed pump

HP wet separator

Transit pump

2774

2832.4

2861.6

2890.8

2909.3

2914.2

HP dry separator

LP dry separator

LP test separator

0.4%

0.2%

HP dry separator

LP dry separator

LP test separator

Results and discussion

Figure 2: Zero S/D PM strategy of KOC (KOC, 2019)

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Availability of KOC equipment -2019

100%

Equipment

Figure 1: Availability of KOC equipments -2019

Conclusions

Competing interests

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that

would prejudice the impartiality of this scientific work.

This study concentrated in the failures occurred in one of

most important oil company in Kuwait, and the protection

elements dealing with oil manufacturing zone in Kuwait and

concentrates on KOC. The manufacturing methods face many

troubles and equipments uncovered to many working

stipulations which might also reason failures. Such screw ups

influences the manufacturing quotes and in most of instances

may also stopping the manufacturing process. In this find out

about the CB compressor is studied, its operation, failure rate,

its results on the universal machine and its disasters are

investigated and analyzed. The moves recommended with the

aid of the protection group are studied, analyzed and evaluated.

A counseled preservation layout is cautioned through this learn

about inclusive of a complete factors for all elements of CB

compressor protection necessities which will minimize failure

price of GCs equipments by means of 75% and enhance

equipments availability to extra than 95%.

Authors’ contribution

All authors of this study have a complete contribution for

data collection, data analyses and manuscript writing.

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