Are your marine vapor control personnel due for system training? If they aren’t, chances are good that they soon will be. Facilities with marine vapor control systems (MVCS) must provide training under U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) regulations: Section 33 CFR 154.2030 for transfer/loading facilities and Section 33 CFR 154.2031 for barge cleaning facilities. Failure to provide regular training is not only unsafe, it can also result in significant USCG penalties.
Fortunately, Aura Engineering makes marine vapor control system training simple and easy. Often, we can even use it as an opportunity to save your facility money!
MVCS training is required before your facility’s five-year operational review. If you haven’t had a training from the pros since your last review, it’s time to start planning for training now. The most pressing concern with training, of course, is to stay compliant with USCG regulations. However, training is also a critical tool to keep your personnel safe and efficient when using your system. It’s also a great way to catch issues before they become dangerous and costly problems.
During training, the seasoned control system engineers at Aura can quickly diagnose common shutdown issues. There are many causes of common shutdowns at different facilities, including operators performing unsafe operations such as bypassing alarms and/or shutdowns, as well as equipment that has not been tested and/or maintained as it should be. In addition to training your team on how to operate vapor control systems safely and efficiently, we can also provide affordable solutions to common shutdown issues before a costly catastrophe can occur.
As an example, Aura Engineering was once contacted by a facility complaining of continuous high-temperature shutdowns on the VCU. Our team suggested vapor control system training to see if we could track down the cause of the issues. During training, our team discovered that this facility was operating non-inert barges near the inert barge oxygen concentration—running at 8% oxygen instead of 14.7% oxygen. This caused the facility to use far too much natural gas, which was causing the VCU to overheat.
After discussing the issue with the facility personnel, the operators admitted that they had been trained by an operator who was trained by his predecessor, and that operator was trained by a predecessor as well. Training had essentially become a game of telephone over the years and bad practices had developed. We’ve heard many other facilities tell similar stories over the years. Fortunately, VCS training significantly reduced the number of shutdowns.
Discussions with operators during training often allows the Aura team to diagnose pervasive issues that may require one of our skilled technicians or programmers to rectify. Following training, all of the operators at a facility are left with a much better understanding of how to safely and efficiently operate their marine vapor control systems—and their facilities maintain USCG compliance.
If your five-year operational review is coming up or your facility and personnel could benefit from VCS training, contact the experts at Aura Engineering today. Our experienced team can provide comprehensive training anywhere it’s needed, and we can also help diagnose any recurring shutdown issues you’re experiencing, as well. We are happy to provide any maintenance, spare parts, or education necessary to help you fix any issues and avoid them in the future!