Esso Fawley Refinery Bureau Veritas designs plans to manage and reduce noise emissions

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

The Esso Fawley Refinery is the largest refinery in the UK and one of the most complex in Europe. It handles around 2,000 ship movements and 22 million tons of crude oil and other products every year. To comply with recent legislation, Fawley Refinery needed a new environmental permit, based on the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control directive (IPPC), to continue operating. The new system is being used throughout Europe. As part of their commitment to reducing community noise emissions, Esso requested Bureau Veritas to conduct a detailed survey and noise modeling exercise with the objective of formulating a long-term noise reduction plan, as required by the permit.

SOLUTION

On a prior project at the refinery, Bureau Veritas had already identified the blocks, which contributed the most to environmental noise emissions. The next step was to improve on the 'resolution' of the acoustic model in order to take account of individual equipment emissions, as opposed to block emissions, for the top ranking blocks.

Detailed measurements were undertaken on equipment in each block and then entered into a noise model. The results were then used, in conjunction with Bureau Veritas' hands-on technical expertise, to develop proposals for a formal noise reduction plan.

BENEFITS

Bureau Veritas' risk based and phased approach to the project meant that Esso was able to effectively target high risk plant items for detailed investigation and mitigation, without having to undertake detailed survey work across the whole refinery. The resulting noise reduction plan will enable Esso to demonstrate to the local community their commitment to managing and reducing their noise emissions, and will help to demonstrate their commitments under IPPC.