The Top 5 Risks Encountered in a Shutdown or Turnaround
A White Paper by Ej Lister Director – STO & EPC Project Consulting IPEC Project Systems, Malaysia Knowing the Enemy Managing risk during day-to-day operations in the manufacturing industry is challenging enough without periodically having to shut down to ensure asset and process integrity. With complex processes generating high pressure, high temperature and high flow-rates, combined with hydrocarbons, chemicals and vapors, any loss of control can amount to significant, even catastrophic failures—often resulting in social and financial losses. Industry has come a long way in reducing and mitigating risk during day-to-day operations. When it comes to navigating complex projects like Shutdowns and Turnarounds, however, the ability to manage risk remains one of Management’s greatest challenges. Although the consequences remain the same— human, environment, social, financial, reputation and asset losses—the probability of an occurrence during the execution of a Shutdown or Turnaround is much greater. The very nature of executing complex and risky projects every few years, under pressure to keep costs low and outage durations short, increases the potential for something to go wrong. This paper explores the top five risks encountered in a Shutdown or Turnaround and their probability and consequence, along with suggestions to minimize their impact. Companies have a great deal to learn when it comes to managing risk during a Shutdown or Turnaround project. The investment is relatively small in comparison to the return, which makes this topic well worth investigating. The Top 5 Risks The first risk—with the highest probability, frequency and consequence—is the risk of uncertainty, or, worse yet, the risk of not knowing that you are not ready to execute a Shutdown or Turnaround. Organizations tend to rely on their