Owensboro Grain Edible Oils, Inc. - Executive Summary

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Owensboro Grain Edible Oils, Inc. operates a vegetable oil refining facility at 1145 Ewing Road, Owensboro, Kentucky. The plant began operations in 1995 in a newly constructed facility. Unrefined vegetable oils are delivered to the facility via truck, rail or barge. Operations include refining, deodorizing, color treatment and hydrogenation facilities. The facility consists of a refinery building and tank farm, and includes railcar wash, truck wash and wastewater treatment structures.The facility produces refined vegetable oils and utilizes hydrogen to further process a portion of these oils. The finished products are loaded and shipped off-site via truck, rail and barge. The hydrogen is stored in two pressure vessels, designed, manufactured, inspected and tested in accordance with the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section VIII, Division 1. Each vessel has a net capacity of liquid hydrogen of 17,150 gallons, and a maximum allowable working pressure of 150 PSIG. The hydrogen oper 
ation is in compliance with the OSHA Process Safety Management standard and this rule. The system is equiped with extensive safety devices. The accidental release prevention program for hydrogen includes the Process Hazards Analysis conducted in 1995 for the Process Safety Management standard. The major hazards identified in the analysis are the possibility of fire, explosion, overpressurization, contamination, equipment failure and natural disaster. The facility has an emergency response plan in place and is covered by the community plan coordinated through the Daviess County Emergency Planning Committee. The process controls in place for the system include emergency vents, relief valves, check valves, manual and automatic shutoffs, rupture disks, equipment grounding, and alarms and procedures. Other mitigation systems or monitoring/detection systems were not considered appropriate for the operations. The hydrogen tank system is designed to vent to atmosphere and does experience venti 
ng occasionally, posing no hazard to public receptors. Since the initiation of operations, there have been no releases which resulted in off-site consequences. The remote possibility of a worst case release could result in a release of the entire contents of one vessel and a resultant vapor cloud explosion. Utilizing the EPA Offsite Consequence Analysis (OCA) Guidance, the affected distance to an endpoint of 1 PSI is 0.20 miles in the event of a worst case release.
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