Rope Access Company Continues Maintenance For Petrochemicals Giant

Rope access solutions provider Skyriders Access Specialists is continuing maintenance work at a petrochemicals company, in Mpumalanga, as part of a five-year service contract that extends to 2019.

- Nadine James

Skyriders marketing manager Mike Zinn says the company is providing maintenance solutions for the petrochemicals plant’s tank farms, the power plants and various other facilities, thereby enhancing overall plant safety.

Zinn notes that using rope access enables the Skyriders team to immediately access and undertake maintenance work on the fire protection system and boilers.

He states that this mode of access is faster and more cost effective than using the traditional access methods, which would likely require multiple service providers.

The cost of labour-intensive traditional access methods has proven to be vastly disproportionate to the scope of any given maintenance project, Zinn declares.

“For example, a company may spend R1-million on a boiler inspection that should only cost R15 000 to R20 000, simply because of the amount of labour and time involved.”

Zinn notes that, typically, deluge system maintenance entails a four-person team abseiling around the petrochemicals tanks of the refinery to flush the network, unclog and replace deluge nozzles,and repair piping, in addition to testing the system’s efficiency.

Once completed, the team simply unties the ropes and rigging equipment.