There have been a number of recent press reports of operating problems at major chemical installations. In Europe, crackers have been in the headlines in recent days, with outages at a number of sites. In Saudi Arabia, on-going technical problems are reported to have impacted the recently commissioned Petro Rabigh facility.
Technical problem solving is an issue for many organisations. In particular, new facilities do not necessarily have the experience and the skilled personnel with a capability in troubleshooting. Where multiple problems exist, it is important to prioritise the issues, rather than trying to tackle all at once and then use a rigorous and highly systematic approach to diagnose and resolve those problems.
If organisations have insufficient in-house capability, external support should be sought, otherwise minor problems have a habit of growing into much bigger issues.
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