Ras Tanura Oil Terminal Experience With Reliability and Safety of Motors Circuits

Oil Terminal depend on large size motors to ship oil to the tankers. The intermittent Operations of those motors increases the risk of failure to starts events not only due to problems in the motors but also in other components in the motor circuits. 9 real cases of motors failures to start are presented, classified under 5 categories; namely, motor management relays, motor starters, circuit breakers, power cables, and excitation systems. These cases are coupled with immediate and root cause analysis, and lessons learned. The safe work practices followed to mitigate arc flash and electric shock hazards while performing maintenance on the motor circuits are also presented for the cases of insulation resistance tests, motor online and offline tests, and thermography.