Most of the vessels we have in our commissioning systems appear on site after their fabrication having been inspected. The question is do we accept that internally they will be clean, dry and oil free with all internal components installed or do we as a commissioning group check?

It may be your project has decided that all vessels will be subject to a Factory Acceptance Test, (FAT) and it may be commissioning went along, this is the ideal, for then, if commissioning can inspect internal vessel readiness prior to shipment, they will have some confidence that the equipment is clean. But what if they did not go to FAT, rest assured if there are problems in commissioning due to the damage debris may cause, the commissioning team will get the blame, so what should we do?

For me it’s simple, insist the vessel is opened, preferably at the man-way and make a visual inspection. This will not make us popular with our construction colleagues, but I believe commissioning has a duty of care to put equipment in service that is fit for purpose and that must include visual inspections for cleanliness.

Stand your ground commissioning, open up them vessels and inspect, I hope you never find anything and we can always have the difficult debates on who pays for a gasket, but better that than putting vessels with debris, weld slag, vessel off-cuts, gloves, cardboard, whatever, into our processes…

Safe and successful commissioning always…