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Episode 8 - The Mountains We Still Need to Climb (featuring John Reynolds) · Upon Further Inspection

0:00
Branden: Upon further inspection, a Mechanical Integrity podcast goes beyond the data and dives into the people challenges and stories behind reliability and inspection.
0:11
Branden: Whether you're in the field or in the office, this podcast is for you because mechanical integrity isn't about assets.
0:18
Branden: It's about the people who keep them running.
0:20
This is episode eight, the mountains we still Need to climb.
0:38
Branden: So today we've got with us, John Reynolds.
0:41
Branden: John, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about, how you met Greg.
0:46
Branden: I don't know how long ago that was, but I'm curious about the story how you and Greg got hooked up.
0:51
John: Well, that was at least 30 years ago, probably more.
0:56
John: but I do recall distinctly 30 years ago, because that's when Greg asked me if I would be willing to become the refining editor or refining petrochemical oil industry editor for his new journal, the Inspectioneering journal.
1:14
John: And that was one of the moments that, stood out in my life.
1:19
John: And we'll talk about that, a little bit later.
1:21
Greg: You know, John, I remember, I think the first time I met you either had to do with some underground piping things that were going on in Wood River at the time, and we were looking at different technologies like acoustic emission and other things to attack that.
1:38
Greg: I wanna think that was back in 87, 88 timeframe maybe.
1:43
Greg: you remember that?
1:44
John: Yeah, indeed.
1:45
John: In fact, the, what I just related occurred in 1995, as you're well aware.
1:50
John: Yes.
1:50
John: Because that's when the journal started.
1:52
John: But, yes, you and I were associates and friends long before 1995, so it's been a long time.
1:59
Branden: John, who were you working with then back in the eighties that when you met Greg?
2:03
John: Shell, I started with Shell right out of school in 1968 and spent nearly 38 years with, the various Shell companies, mostly in North America.
2:16
John: But, later in my career, some of, some of it overseas, I was transferred to the head office, the worldwide Shell head office in the Hague, Netherlands for a period of years, early in my career.
2:30
John: But, altogether the Shell has something like 70 different companies under the Shell name and I, I worked for half a dozen of them during my 38 years with Shell.
2:41
Branden: Okay.
2:42
Branden: And so Greg, you were at Wood River.
2:43
Branden: That Wood River facility used to be a Shell facility.
2:46
Greg: Yep.
2:47
Greg: It sure did.
2:48
Greg: pretty big facility too.
2:49
Greg: Good size refinery.
2:50
Greg: I was actually at the time with DNV and we were doing a lot of advanced NDE work, some of acoustic emissions, some automated ut, some extreme value analysis.
3:03
Greg: You know, a lot of good things were going on at the time.
3:05
Branden: Okay, cool.
3:06
Branden: Yeah, I guess I, it's funny, all these different plants have all different kinds of lineages and, I, I didn't realize the Wood River one did Shell build it or was it something else even before that?
3:17
John: Well, I have no idea what, when it was built, I probably knew that at one time, but it, that refinery is at least a hundred years old, and it was at the time, the largest in the Shell system.
3:31
Branden: Oh wow, okay.
3:33
Branden: Yeah, I didn't realize that.
3:34
Greg: but the other thing that's interesting about that, John, I don't know if you want to say anything about this, but you know, Shell went through the transition, of internal ownership transition between the Dutch and the Americans.
3:45
Greg: And I think at the time, back in the late eighties, and John correct me that Shell was being run the refining anyway, at least in the US was being run outta Houston and the Hague was handling the rest of the world, or what was the deal back then?
4:00
Greg: 'cause I used to get confused by that.
4:02
Greg: Maybe some of the listeners, I don't know if it matters to them anymore, about when the Shell US offices were doing things and, and the Hague was doing things as far as o ownership or, you know, authority.
4:15
John: Yeah, you're quite right.
4:16
John: The head office in the Hague, den Hog, as they call it, in the Netherlands, handled all the Shell facilities in what we here in America called WOSA.
4:27
John: WOSA stands for the world outside America, but inside America, all those facilities were independent, relatively independent of, the, the workings and the going ons in the Netherlands.
4:42
John: And, managed by, Shell's head office in Houston.
4:47
Greg: Thank you, John.
4:48
Branden: so John, that was 30 years ago.
4:50
Branden: that you, I guess, what, 25 years ago then, since you finished up with Shell, what did you then do after that?
4:56
John: I was all over the country in several different places with Shell.
5:01
John: And then in about 1962, I, retired from full-time work, from, from Shell, and, went, went on to almost full-time work, as a, consultant within the industry, assisting other, companies in fixed equipment, mechanical integrity, FEMI, as we call it, and spent the now 20 years or so doing various things, including participation in the API.
5:33
John: P-S-S-A-P, if I got the acronym right, process Safety Site Assessment Program.
5:39
John: Mm-hmm.
5:39
John: As a FEMI auditor.
5:42
John: And I spent, at least 10 years, probably more than that even, as a FEMI auditor for that program, doing nearly a hundred audits as a FEMI representative, in that program.
5:55
John: And, also a lot of my time, after, leaving, retiring from Shell was spent defending clients in our industry from various, lawsuits.
6:09
John: And I'd look at the lawsuit when I was, requested to handle.
6:13
John: The defense part and determine whether or not I could provide adequate e expert testimony.
6:19
John: And, and I agreed with what was going on.
6:22
John: And so I've spent a lot of time defending clients in the industry against, lawsuits, by providing expert testimony and fixed equipment, mechanical integrity.
6:32
John: Those are probably two of the primary things that I've been doing since, retiring from Shell.
6:39
Branden: do you think you got involved with all the lawsuits?
6:41
John: Well, that's a good question.
6:43
John: I think, it's probably because I had, I was pretty well known in the industry at that time as, a FEMI leader.
6:52
John: So when, a company a, a major petrochemical company or refining company, had a lawsuit filed against them, either for regulatory reasons or other companies suing them for various reasons, uh, they'd probably go down to their FEMI, uh, representatives and say, Hey, who in the industry might be able to defend us from this lawsuit?
7:15
John: And, because I'd spent a lot of time networking with all my colleagues in all the major, and intermediate sized, companies in the petroleum and petrochemical industry, very often they'd say, oh, well how about John Reynolds?
7:29
John: He's been active in the industry for many years, and he might be able to, help us out.
7:35
John: So the legal firm, Would contact me and ask me if I, would be interested in representing them.
7:41
John: And, I think that basically answers your question.
7:44
John: does that help?
7:45
Branden: Yeah.
7:45
Branden: how did you go from Shell did, was there a specific training or a specific experience that you had with Shell that put you into FEMI fixed equipment, mechanical integrity, is that right?
7:59
Branden: FEMI?
8:00
John: Yeah.
8:00
John: Right.
8:01
Branden: Yeah.
8:01
Branden: So what, what puts you, or, or what started you down that path of being identified as, an expert and, getting into the world of audits?
8:09
John: Well, basically, I.
8:11
John: I started with Shell in 1968, as I mentioned earlier, because they were looking for the, a, a small Shell had a small chemical plant in Denver and they were looking for an inspection supervisor.
8:24
John: And when I, got my, two degrees at the University of Wisconsin, A-B-S-M-E and MS in metallurgical engineering, I had just started skiing in Wisconsin and I was really pleased with that.
8:37
John: So at that time in the industry, engineers were in such great demand that we basically could just.
8:44
John: define where we wanted to work and who we wanted to work for, and very often got an offer because there was a significant shortage of ENG engineers in the industry.
8:54
John: And so I, I decided I wanted to work, in the mountains or close to the mountains because, I'd like to continue skiing.
9:01
John: And so I, uh, interviewed Shell because they had a facility in, Denver.
9:06
John: And, uh, went to work for them as an inspection supervisor who they were looking for and, and an equipment engineer for FEMI engineering.
9:15
John: And basically, got started at that plant and really liked fixed equipment, mechanical integrity and inspection supervision.
9:24
John: And pretty much stayed with that throughout my Shell career.
9:28
John: I did.
9:29
John: At a time, move up into engineering management.
9:33
John: I was the engineering manager at their Anacortes refinery during the 1980s.
9:38
John: And, that, that job was not very satisfying to me.
9:43
John: I, I actually had to supervise the inspection department, the inspection engineer, et cetera.
9:48
John: But I had a lot of other responsibilities, engineering responsibilities as the manager there.
9:54
John: But, you know, the, the job of a low level manager in a refinery is, is what I used to describe as, primarily having to stuff a gallon in a quart jar every day in terms of things that needed to be done relative to the budget.
10:09
John: And the people you had to do it.
10:10
John: And it was not as satisfying to me as, the engineering aspect.
10:15
John: So in the late eighties, I decided to get out of management and came back to the Houston head office area, as a senior or staff engineer they called it at that time, for fixed equipment, mechanical integrity, and stuck with it, the rest of my career
10:31
Branden: Yeah.
10:32
Branden: Yeah.
10:32
Branden: It's interesting.
10:33
Branden: You, you started as inspection super.
10:36
Branden: I guess this is just my brain going from an inspection super to a, a staff engineer.
10:41
Branden: when you moved into corporate.
10:43
Branden: usually I don't see it working that way, but, so John, you mentioned, outside of doing audits that you, enjoyed, mountain climbing.
10:51
Branden: any notable mountains that you've scaled in your time?
10:54
John: As a matter of fact, I mentioned this in my keynote address when I introduced the, the title that I had climbed 30, I think 32 mountains, if I remember the number correctly.
11:05
John: Oh, wow.
11:06
John: And, yeah, I, I climbed, I didn't summit Mount Rainier in Washington, but I, I summited mount, I can't forget the name of it now.
11:15
John: a couple other, major mountains in Washington.
11:18
John: I, I'm basically a nature boy outside of my work on fixed equipment, mechanic integrity.
11:24
John: I love the outdoors.
11:26
John: And, you know, uh, for the last 25, 30 years in business, I was traveling all over the country, all over North America and, and sometimes all over the world.
11:37
John: On business, I would frequently take personal time off to go to, places where I might enjoy climbing a mountain or doing some hiking or, or whatever it is, because, uh, that was my way of relaxing and in enjoying the God-given beauty of the world, which I brought me a lot of, time, away from, my fixed equipment, mechanical integrity, uh, efforts.
12:02
John: So, and basically I love, all of what nature provides.
12:07
John: My, my father was A botany technician for the University of Wisconsin.
12:11
John: So he, and he later owned a, a nursery where we grew trees and plants and bushes and flowers, et cetera.
12:18
John: So he instilled in me a love for, for nature.
12:23
John: And, uh, as a result of that, my, my time off from all the things that we've been talking about on fixed equipment, can integrity involved hiking, backpacking, mountain climbing, llama packing, camping into beautiful wilderness areas, mostly in North America.
12:41
John: and so, yeah.
12:42
John: I'm glad you brought that up.
12:44
John: That's, that's one of the things I really enjoy outside of, uh, all the efforts I, I put into fixed equipment, mechanical integrity.
12:53
Branden: where's your favorite place you've traveled to?
12:55
John: Oh, good grief.
12:56
John: I, I spent, At least a decade going to and from Alaska mm-hmm.
13:03
John: With a group of other people, four of us, where we would, fly in, on a, commuter or an airplane, and unload a boat, a blow up boat, and float a river, just camping and floating a river somewhere in Alaska.
13:21
John: Fishing it and camping along the way and seeing, you know, for a week or 10 days and seeing absolutely no other people, but just bears and moose and elk and, and the natural beauty and just living off the land.
13:37
John: And we did that five or six times over a period of a decade or more.
13:41
John: And that's something that, uh, is instilled in my memory of good times.
13:47
John: That's cool.
13:48
Branden: That's really cool.
13:50
Branden: did you rely on local guides or how did you, did you set up the tr like, I'm, I'm super in, you got me hooked now.
13:55
Branden: how'd you figure out all the logistics?
13:57
Branden: Because there wasn't, like, I'm assuming this was before Google.
14:01
John: Yeah, you're quite right.
14:03
John: And, and yeah, that's, you bring up a good point.
14:06
John: Most people do that by hiring a guide and you, they, they take care of all the logistics and all the planning and we didn't do that.
14:16
John: We, we did all the planning and logistics, ourselves and figured out where we wanted to go and who we would need to hire to fly us in.
14:26
John: We just basically planned the entire trip ourself without and, and didn't involve, any guides.
14:32
John: And we're fortunate enough to that each one of them was very successful.
14:38
John: I do recall that one of them, interestingly enough, one year or a couple years, uh, Alaska was extremely hot and dry and it had terrible for forest fires.
14:49
John: And then one of the trips that we were floating a river fishing for salmon and trout, we floated down a river into a, major forest fire.
14:59
John: And we camped.
15:01
John: We could see it in the distance.
15:03
John: And so we stopped and camped that night.
15:07
John: And decided, well, one of us has gotta stay up.
15:10
John: Well, the other slept, and that was me.
15:13
John: And I sat in my chair at the camp on the river and watched the, the fire.
15:20
John: I could eventually, I could hear it, major forest fire has an enormous, sound to it, a roaring sound.
15:28
John: And pretty soon, about two or three o'clock in the morning, the fire jumped a ridge downstream from us.
15:34
John: And I saw the flames for the first time.
15:37
John: Uh, before that I could only see smoke rising in the distance.
15:41
John: So I woke everybody up and we basically put all of our, equipment and, and stuff that we needed for the trip on an island.
15:52
John: Where there wasn't, it was just a sandy island in the middle of the river.
15:56
John: And then we'd grabbed the boat and, walked it back upstream to a safe place.
16:02
John: And the, fire went around us because the, we were on a sandy island and, the fire went around us and the, pilot who came to get us had to go up and down the river because we didn't make it down to the designated, site where he was gonna pick us up.
16:19
John: So he flew up and down the river for a couple hours until eventually found us sitting on this island.
16:25
John: And he then landed the plane, picked us up, and uh, we went back to the area where we had left all our equipment.
16:32
John: And likewise, it, the fire had gone around it.
16:35
John: So we picked up everything, loaded it on the plane and got out of there.
16:39
John: At any rate, you brought back a, a significant memory of a, potential problem that we had one of the years.
16:46
Branden: That's putting it lightly.
16:47
Branden: A potential problem.
16:49
Greg: That was an adventure, dude.
16:51
John: That was a significant adventure, indeed.
16:54
John: Little scary at the time.
16:56
Branden: how old do you think you were around then?
16:58
John: that would've been 20 years ago.
17:00
John: I just turned 80 in October, so, uh, I would've been in my late fifties.
17:06
Branden: You were doing that in your fifties, holy cow.
17:10
John: Oh, indeed, yes.
17:11
Branden: Wow.
17:12
Branden: That's awesome.
17:13
Branden: That's really cool.
17:14
Branden: So, what does a, a day in the life of John Reynolds look like now?
17:17
John: Well, I've settled now into the Rocky Mountains.
17:21
John: I love the mountains.
17:22
John: I have a home at 7,000 feet in the Rockies overlooking, a beautiful valley and, a ski area with snow cap mountains.
17:32
John: And, uh, so I'm pretty, much retired now.
17:36
John: I'm, I'm down to only five or 10%, part-time work and I enjoy just gardening, landscaping, and sitting in my rocking chair on the deck watching trees grow.
17:51
Branden: Well after, after surviving a forest fire, watching trees grow have to be, has to be a pretty good site.
17:57
John: Yes, indeed.
17:58
Greg: Hey, I, I have a related question for you, John.
18:00
Greg: Thinking back over time, can you talk a little bit about, was it the three wise men?
18:05
John: Oh, yeah.
18:06
John: that was interesting.
18:08
Greg: Yeah.
18:08
John: One of my first jobs back when I came back from my assignment in the Netherlands was to get together with two other FEMI experts, as you, as you call'em, the three wisemen.
18:23
John: We were, somebody gave us that, that notation and we published basically in Shell.
18:30
John: What was the forerunner of API 571 describing?
18:35
John: I.
18:35
John: All the damage mechanisms that all of our operating sites had to deal with, and how to identify'em, what they meant, the materials of construction that were necessary and the type of inspection activities, all the things that, that 571 now covers.
18:56
John: We wrote the book on that for the Shell Oil and Shell Chemical Company, and I think that the first one was published back in the mid seventies or there about I was a primary author of that book and that book got out of Shell for some reason or another and made it to most of the other refinery companies.
19:14
John: And so, my name was on it and that's probably one of the reasons I, started to be recognized as a FEMI expert, in the industry.
19:24
John: Thanks John Hay.
19:25
John: Well, I'd forgotten all about that.
19:27
John: who were
19:27
Greg: the, was it Ed Kremer and Ed Blanc, or who were the other two?
19:31
Greg: Wisemen?
19:32
John: Ed Kremer, who has now passed, and George Lemer and I have no idea where George is now.
19:39
John: These
19:39
Greg: Okay.
19:40
Greg: Well I remember for years, contractors and other people would say they were using the guidelines that the three wise men came up with to determine, how many CMLs or TMLs to place and where to put'em.
19:53
Greg: So it's, it's good to have that history.
19:56
John: Yeah, indeed.
19:57
John: that was, that was, the start, one of the starting points of my, materials and corrosion specialty within fixed equipment, mechanical integrity.
20:08
John: Really enjoyed working on that book.
20:10
Greg: Yeah.
20:10
Greg: I, I tell you in the early days too, when, when, we were at the API meetings, I'd always get a kick outta seeing people like Jim Coley, who I think was the five 10 chair just bef or the SCI chair, just bef he was before you, right.
20:27
Greg: John?
20:27
Greg: How much after him and about what year did you take over the leadership of five 10?
20:32
John: Yeah.
20:33
John: Boy, that brings me back a long way.
20:35
John: That you're right, that wa that was in the 1980s.
20:39
John: what happened was, right at that time there was a downturn in the industry and API had to.
20:46
John: Do some things to minimize, use of, of, experts.
20:51
John: pressure was being put on them by member companies to reduce budget and, and strain on their own people who were volunteering for the API.
21:00
John: So they had condensed the inspection committee into the corrosion and Materials committee.
21:06
John: I think it was in the early eighties.
21:08
John: And Jim Colley, then of who was, who was Jim
21:12
Greg: Texaco?
21:12
Greg: He was Texaco.
21:13
Greg: He was at Port Arthur.
21:14
John: That's correct.
21:16
Greg: Inspection manager.
21:17
John: Yeah.
21:17
John: So he, they had put the inspection committee and the corrosion materials committee together.
21:25
John: API.
21:25
John: And so Jim and whoever else was, was from the Corrosion Materials Group, were co-chairman of that committee.
21:34
John: And basically the committee was completely dominated at that time by the corrosion materials people.
21:40
John: So when I came along, I joined a couple others, including Jim and we, we managed to convince the API that it was now time to break away from the Corrosion Materials group and go our separate way.
21:55
John: So the Corrosion materials group would have a subcommittee and the inspection would have a subcommittee, and Jim and I, and probably eight or 10 others, then formed the inspection subcommittee within the API sometime during the 1980s.
22:11
John: So we were a really small group at that time.
22:14
John: And the only document we had was API 510.
22:19
John: And believe it or not, at that time, it was only 12 or 15 pages long.
22:24
John: And Wow.
22:25
John: We grew, we grew over the next 40 years or so, whatever it's been since 40, 45 years since that time, from a group that would meet with the API with, with only a dozen of us.
22:39
John: As you well know, Greg, now we draw 60, 70, and sometimes 80 people, right to our meetings.
22:46
John: Yep.
22:46
John: So we grew the inspection subcommittee, we grew it into, from just an inspection focused subcommittee to an inspection and mechanical integrity subcommittee, what's now called, schemy Subcommittee Inspection, mechanical Integrity.
23:03
John: That now has oversees something like 15 or 16 major, FEMI documents.
23:11
John: And 45 years ago we started with, as I just said, one small 510 document.
23:17
John: I think the document now 510 is probably 70 or 80 pages.
23:22
John: I haven't counted them lately, but we created along the way, with that expansion that I just talked about.
23:29
John: We created API 570 a piping code.
23:33
John: And as you well know, Greg, a dozen or more other major recommended practices on fixed equipment, mechanical integrity, that the subcommittee is now, maintaining, continuing to improve.
23:47
John: And, and four or five more documents are underway.
23:51
John: That'll be published within the next few years.
23:54
Greg: Yeah, it's been been a lot of activity.
23:56
Greg: very busy, hopefully.
23:58
Greg: I, I think we're, we're helping a lot of, operators around the world.
24:03
Greg: of course, that's the, that's the hope that we operate safely and, reliably.
24:08
Greg: so, John, is there a story or an experience from all your, all your years that was especially meaningful or memorable, that you'd share with us?
24:19
Greg: Share with the listeners?
24:21
John: Well, let's see.
24:22
John: it's hard to to name just one experience because I've had a lot of meaningful and memorable experiences in the last 60 or so years, since 57 years, I should say, since I graduated.
24:36
John: But, you know, the one that comes immediately to mind is, is when you asked me to become the refining editor for the Inspectioneering journal that you created in 1995.
24:50
John: And as you probably recall, I resisted because my workload at Shell was so huge and I could hardly keep up with it.
24:59
John: But I, I remember I eventually acquiesced and started writing regular articles for the journal.
25:05
John: And, and started giving presentations.
25:08
John: and I think of that experience as probably one of my career defining moments as becoming a recognized fixed equipment, mechanical integrity leader.
25:20
John: Not just within Shell at the time, but, but, because that experience, significantly, gave me more exposure outside of the Shell organization.
25:30
Greg: I am glad, I'm glad it's been a good ride for you, John, and, and we're still riding,
25:33
John: another, really proud moment in my, in my FEMI history, if, if you will, was two, 2019, when, uh.
25:43
John: The subcommittee inspection, mechanical integrity asked me to give the keynote address to the inspection and Mechanical Integrity Summit.
25:52
John: That was, I still think of that as a, as a great honor and a, a real highlight, in my career because, that was the first time I'd spoken to an audience of, I think something like 15 or 1600 people, joined us that year that we, we grew the, inspection summit from a, an original, gathering of 300 people back in 2007 to, which must be now pushing 2000 attendees.
26:20
John: But Yep.
26:21
John: At the time I gave the keynote address in 2019, we had 1600 people.
26:26
John: And so that was a great honor.
26:28
John: For me to be able to give that keynote address
26:31
Greg: what was the name of that address?
26:32
Greg: John Do you remember the name of the Yeah, it
26:35
John: was, oh, it was mountains.
26:38
John: Yep.
26:39
John: Yep.
26:39
John: Mountains.
26:39
John: We have climbed and mountains.
26:41
John: We still must climb, or still need to climb.
26:46
John: And basically it was all about the analogy of I'm, I was a mountain climber back in the early days of, my, activities, outside of Shell, I equated that activity to the mountains.
27:00
John: We have climbed within the API by creating all these standards and documents for the industry that I just spoke about.
27:08
John: And then the mountains we still need to climb are all the things that we're ahead of us, all the important FEMI issues that we still needed to resolve.
27:18
Branden: how do you think we've done, looking back over, I mean, it's been six years, I don't remember all the things that you said that we needed to do, but from what you remember, how do you think we've done so far?
27:28
John: Oh, I think we're making great progress in the industry.
27:32
John: back in the 1970s and eighties and even into the 1990s, those of us who were around like Greg, Remember that we were having a lot of catastrophes and explosions and huge fires and, even sadly, enough loss of life because of fixed equipment, mechanical Andre failures in the refining and petrochemical industry.
27:57
John: And so that produced a lot of emphasis in, the API, inspection mechanical integrity group to, to get standards published to help, refiners and petrochemical, operators to avoid these incidents.
28:13
John: so each time an incident would occur, so people would bring the results of their investigation to the committee and we'd mull'em over and go through the consensus building process that is normal for, API committees.
28:28
John: And generate a standard of what happened and why it happened and how to avoid it, for in the future.
28:34
John: And, you know, there are hundreds of little things like that, little and big things that are now standardized.
28:41
John: And as a result of that, over the last 25 years, we've substantially reduced the amount of, incidents, the amount of fires, explosions and loss of life as a result of insufficient, fixed equipment, mechanical integrity.
28:58
John: So I'm extremely pleased with the progress that we've made over the years and that we continue to make.
29:06
Branden: do you think there's one specific, I hate using the word thing, but do you think there's one specific thing, or document or process that was put in place that made the most difference, bang for the buck type of, of difference across all those years of implementing the mechanical integrity?
29:26
John: You know, I don't, I not, I don't think there's one that comes to mind.
29:31
John: The two primary codes that we have, that you're well aware of and, and most of our listeners are well aware of, are, API 510, the pressure vessel inspection code, and API 570, the piping inspection code, and both of those documents contain a lot of issues.
29:52
John: That were generated and, and put into those two codes as a result of incidents that occurred.
29:59
John: So it's, it's not just one, but, every time a major incident occurred, we would standardize the process for how to avoid it in the future.
30:10
John: And so, that's basically how the process works.
30:13
John: But for me personally, it was the huge incident in Shell on May 5th, 1988, where the cat cracker at the Norco refinery in Louisiana exploded at 5:30 in the morning.
30:31
John: Destroyed the, the, entire cat cracker, the, the, primary fractionator fell to the ground.
30:39
John: And if you can imagine a 250 foot tower laying on the ground with the entire unit up in flames and seven operators died.
30:50
John: That, for me personally, was a, an enormous turning event in my career that solidified the fact that I am going to from then on, dedicate my entire career to fixed equipment mechanical integrity, not only within Shell, but how to avoid such incidents for all the rest of the refiners and petrochemical operators so it was a, a huge turning event.
31:16
John: I was involved for several years in the investigations of why it happened and, you know, not only the primary root causes of it, but there were probably a half a dozen contributing causes that, that occurred in all of those issues got, standardized into the, the documents, the recommended practices, and the codes that we manage in the, inspection mechanical, I integrities, group within the API.
31:45
Branden: I, I think it's great that, you know, a lot of people don't learn from mistakes, and I think it's great that you guys in the seventies and eighties as you were developing the documents said, where, where did we have problems?
31:57
Branden: And let's try and use those problems to keep them from happening again.
32:01
Branden: I think that's a a that was a great approach.
32:03
Branden: Instead of just going out and wholesale developing different procedures, you actually took the learnings and used those, to create and better the documents.
32:13
John: You know?
32:13
John: That's a good point.
32:14
John: You know, the, some people have the impression that, that it's a group of people that get together at API and, and they just think up ways to make, uh, uh, owner operators do things differently or better, but.
32:30
John: It, it's not that at all.
32:33
John: It's that it's like I just described.
32:35
John: When an, when an incident occurs, we bring the, the, the investigation report and all the information and facts and, and recommendations that, that, the company went through as a result of the investigation.
32:50
John: And we, discussed them in great depth as to what we could do and how we would codify, all the, the recommendations, to, make them known to the rest of the world why this event happened at a certain refinery or petrochemical plant and how, how everybody else could avoid it in the future.
33:11
John: And, you know, another one that was almost as large as, the Shell event that I just talked about was the big event.
33:17
John: At the Exxon, refinery on the Gulf Coast, it was a result of a PMI issue where a carbon steel fitting was inadvertently substituted for, five chrome, half Molly fitting in a, coker plant.
33:33
John: And after 20 or 30 years, it ruptured prematurely because it was corroding at a faster rate.
33:40
John: And the whole industry had been having problems like that with the inadvertent substitutions of a piece of carbon steel into an alloy system.
33:49
John: But this was the first huge loss that really got everybody's attention.
33:55
John: Got a lot of media attention, got a lot of regulator attention, and that.
33:59
John: resulted in the publication of API 578 on material verification.
34:05
John: It's a outstanding document on how to avoid these kinds of inadvertent substitutions of, of material in alloy systems.
34:17
John: and that was just one example of how these documents are generated at, at the time, Exxon did an equally good job, as Shell did after their major loss at the, their cat cracker.
34:30
John: They, they, came to the API and and shared everything that they knew about the huge event that they had, that resulted in, two operators, losing their lives.
34:42
John: and as a result, codified a brand new standard on how to, avoid this sort of thing in the future.
34:48
John: And as a result of that document and implementation throughout the industry, the number of losses as a result of inadvertent material substitutions has gone way down.
35:00
John: It's just two examples of why and how, the industry works together to build consensus documents to improve the industry and avoid fixed equipment, mechanical integrity auditors.
35:13
John: But if we had time, I could run you through 30 more of those examples.
35:17
John: I got all
35:18
Branden: the time you need John.
35:19
Thank you for joining us for part one of our interview with John Reynolds.
35:23
Make sure you listen to our next episode.
35:25
Episode number nine, RBI was the way of the future
35:29
Greg: Thank you for listening to Upon Further Inspection, a Mechanical Integrity podcast.
35:33
Greg: This episode was co-created by inspection, hearing, and Core solutions.
35:38
Greg: Our producers are Nick Schmoyer, Jocelyn Christie and Jeremiah Wooten.
35:43
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35:50
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35:54
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35:56
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35:59
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