Canadian Occupational Safety

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2017 35 get the information wrong." Tags can also be misinterpreted or ignored, says Parrott. During a shutdown, for example, there are a plethora of tags being used because there is so much work going on and they can be overlooked. Another benefit of having a physi- cal lock on the flange is that it cannot be taken off by anyone other than the keyholder, says Teece. "Ensuring that there's one lock, one person, one key, so that person with the key is the only one that can release the lockout, that doesn't happen when just a blind is involved because if anybody has the proper sized wrench, they are capable of removing that blind." IMPACT WIDESPREAD When proper procedures are not followed, workers down the line can be exposed to chemicals, flam- mable gases, oil and steam. This can result in burning, blistering, irrita- tion, respiratory issues, suffocation and even death. Additionally, high- pressure contents can lead to cuts or amputation. "If a blind flange is not used prop- erly and they are just relying on upstream and downstream flanges to have shut off the flow of energy, if inadvertently one of those flanges is opened while they are still con- ducting maintenance activity on the flange in question, they would be exposing those workers to a hazard," says Smyth. Explosion is also a serious risk as many workers will be conducting welding or grinding work. One high-profile case was an explo- sion at Nexen's Long Lake facility near Fort McMurray, Alta., that killed two employees in January 2016. This was the worst-case scenario that truly drives home the need for a flange lock, says Parrott. "Two guys died because they unbolted the wrong flange. They were pros; one was 30, one was 52. These guys were journeymen pipefitters and they made a mistake," he says. But the majority of these incidents don't result in fatalities and they don't make the newspaper. They end up in internal documents that the public will never see. They are referred to as some version of "Learning from Inci- dents" training, says Parrott. Almost every operator has a story of workers who were about to start work on the wrong line, says Par- rott. He recalls one day where he caught workers just in time — they were about to unbolt a live sour line. Physical locks would hopefully help prevent mistakes like this. "You hear stories like, 'There were two pumps and one had all the tags on it, the other one didn't and was running and they started unbolting the other one and I don't know why.' And you talk to the maintenance guys, and they don't know why," Par- rott says. When it comes to leaks, the major- ity are caused by mechanical error but some are caused by human error, such as the wrong blind being pulled. Leaks can not only result in injuries, they can also lead to negative press for the company and hurt its reputation, says Parrott. The company will not be able to attract top talent because word will get around in the industry of it being an unsafe place to work, he adds. Leaks can also cause harm to the environment and bring steep costs with it. "Cleanup is very expensive and then while you're cleaning that up, that equipment won't be working, so process downtime is very expensive. And environmental reporting, when you start bringing in the government and you have to have inspectors, the equipment has to stay down longer, so environmental reporting is also very expensive," says Parrott. Depending on the nature and amount of the spill, companies can be subject to hefty government fines. Parrott believes it's just a matter of time before accounting catches up with safety. "We didn't have to have electrical breakers until the U.S. brought in legislation in 1989. They realized kill- ing people was bad and that it costs about $1 million when it happens, so a $5 lock seemed like a reasonable expense to stop that," he says. A flange lock is not just useful in the oil and gas industry. It can be used in plants and other facilities where pipes connect to one another, to a pressure vessel or to a valve. Safety professionals in the atomic industry, pharmaceutical manufac- turing and even municipalities have expressed interest in having a physi- cal device to lockout flanges. "In curling rinks and arenas they are dealing with ammonia. With their swimming pools, they are deal- ing with chlorine and all of these have bolted flanges that have to be blinded off at one time or another," says Parrott. After Parrott and his colleagues came up with the idea for the flange lock four years ago, they read a lot of books for entrepreneurs and got help from the Northern Alberta Business Incubator as well as TEC Edmonton. They officially launched the product in June 2016 at the Global Petroleum Show in Calgary, and Parrott admits that product development was the "hardest thing ever." His dream is to see the flange lock stop incidents and save lives — and quit his job as a pro- cess operator and run Intego full time. He has put in calls to Alberta Occu- pational Health and Safety as well as to his MLA to try to discuss legislative changes that would require specifi- cally locking out bolted flanges before conducting work. "I am starting to ask some ques- tions as to can we change this? Can we improve this?" says Parrott. "Can we take our systems to a world-class level and start doing things people aren't doing yet that make us better than the rest of the world?" "Maintenance people are a lot more transient these days. They used to work on the same equipment all the time and they got used to it. They knew what was happening and it was very predictable, but now, they are moving around a lot more, so they are working on different equipment all the time."

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