The Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore Limited (FACT), India’s first large scale fertiliser unit was set up in 1943. FACT Udyogamandal started production in 1947, with an installed capacity of 10,000 MT Nitrogen. FACT became a Kerala State Public Sector Enterprise on 15th August 1960 and the Government of India became the major shareholder on 21st November 1962. FACT commenced production in 1947, with the rated capacity of 50,000 MT of ammonium sulphate and 50,000 MT of Caprolactam – nylon-6 monomer.. FACT has, at present, three manufacturing divisions around Cochin producing both nitrogenous and phosphate fertilizers and Petrochemical Caprolactam.
The Petrochemical complex, which was established in 1989, comprises of the following main plants:
- 135 TPD Cyclohexanone Plant
- 114 TPD Hydroxylamine Sulphate Plant
- 152 MTPD Caprolactam Plant
iFluids Engineering has been engaged to carry out Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) for Caprolactam Plant of FACT-Udyogamandal Complex and the study covers the different components and equipment’s associated with the proposed facility alone.
The following facilities are covered under the QRA study
- Hyam Plant
- Anone Plant
- Lactam Plant
- Storage Facility
- Ammonia Storage
- Benzene Storage
- LPG Storage
- Cyclohexane Storage
- LSHS/Furnace Oil Storage
The main objective of this study is to estimate the potential risk levels for personnel due to accidental release of hazardous materials from loss of containment scenarios from the facilities and to demonstrate that individual risks are within the broadly acceptable regions.
The Objectives of QRA are as follows:
- To Identify Hazards and Major Loss of Containment (LOC) events.
- To Calculate physical effects of failure case scenarios which include Estimation of Jet Fire, Pool Fire heat radiation distances, Flammable gas dispersion distances, BLEVE and overpressure explosion distances.
- Failure Frequency evaluation.
- To quantify Societal risk and estimate Potential Loss of Life.
- To Perform risk assessment to confirm that risk can be reduced consistent with the ALARP principle according to the UK HSE risk acceptance criteria.
- Recommend risk reducing measures to ensure that all risks are in ALARP or Acceptable region.