Current Facilities for unloading, storage, preparation, transportation and offloading as a rule have design life to last of over 30 years, often 50 years. In reality very often facilities require life cycle extension as being still in demand after expiry of design life. Such an approach has become more in demand during recent decades as modern engineering more and more aims at optimizing the overall costs while engineering values, to achieve higher efficiencies.
During latest periods the occurring disastrous events are being observed with the aging facilities, like fires, explosions etc., which sometimes are ascribed to conspiracies, which however often are due to inadvertent attitudes to facilities and hazards those facilities may conceal. Risks are not properly identified and addressed, thus leading to artificial higher cost efficiency missing critical assessment criteria for brownfield engineering solutions.
This Article aims at structuring the approaches to safer engineering by dividing the process into stages each having its weight in consideration of extension of facility’s longevity. Such approach will significantly minimize risks of hazardous events during exploitation of facility beyond their design life. This will be through staged approach, evaluation of threats at each stage and developing solutions at various levels of approach.