BP Chemicals enhances safety with Flir infrared. Flir Systems has revealed how its GasfindIR thermal imaging camera range is enabling BP Chemicals to minimise leaks at its Saltend plant.

Effective leak detection is a site priority at Saltend and one of a number of procedures for ensuring safe operation.

Dr Geoffrey Wilcox, senior technologist, said: 'We have several established programmes that help us to comply with both regulatory and local requirements.' The EU Chemical Agents Directive, to protect the health and safety of workers using chemicals, and the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations, commonly referred to as COMAH, are typical examples.

 

He added: 'To support these aims, we have many systems for measuring, monitoring and reporting.

 

'Some are fixed and some are portable, such as personal measurement devices.' Infrared gas detection is not new to BP Chemicals at Saltend but since last evaluating its potential the technology has been subject to considerable development.

 

In 2001, Wilcox trialled a highly sophisticated system that used spectral analysis to identify the specific gas emission.

 

He said: 'The kit was so unwieldy; it was like welcoming a film crew on site.' Dave Fashimpaur, environmental and loss control specialist at BP in Naperville, US, had come to the same conclusion: that such a system was not practical for his purposes. Source from