An owner hired an engineering, procurement, and construction contractor to build a petrochemical plant, but the pre-commissioning activities delayed the planned startup by months. Baker & O’Brien reviewed the pre-commissioning activities, the schedule, procedures, and industry practices to provide opinions on the causes of the delay and the responsibilities of the owner and contractor. As part of the arbitration, we produced a technical expert report and several joint expert reports.

The commissioning and startup of a petrochemical facility took much longer than expected, primarily due to the unexpected duration of properly cleaning process equipment and piping via “high pressure blowing.” The petrochemical industry employs precision equipment such as turbines and compressors that operate at high pressures and temperatures. Cleanliness of the upstream piping and vessels is paramount to a safe and reliable equipment startup. Typical industry cleaning processes start with the general removal of construction debris followed by chemical cleaning and/or high pressure (HP) blowing to remove mill scale and fine particles. If these cleaning processes are not properly considered, planned, and staged in the pre-commissioning process, then commissioning and startup can be delayed for additional cleaning, or, worse, halted to repair damaged equipment.

An Owner hired an EPC Contractor to construct a petrochemical facility and hand it over as mechanically complete and ready for commissioning and startup. To achieve mechanical completion, the equipment must be “pre-commissioned,” which in industry means cleaned and prepared for commissioning.

On this project, the pre-commissioning process delayed the startup of the facility by multiple months and culminated in a dispute between the parties. Baker & O’Brien was retained to explain the typical industry obligations for equipment cleaning and opine on the cleaning processes used for the specific project. Our analysis was required to identify which party caused the delay.

The dispute centered around the HP blowing process, which became the critical path for the project when the duration shifted from weeks to months. Aside from the duration, the parties disagreed over who was responsible for the debris in the equipment and subsequent removal thereof. Baker & O’Brien reviewed the residue in the equipment and piping, the HP blowing schedule, and the HP blowing procedure, along with industry practices in arriving at opinions about the causes of the delays and the responsibilities of the Owner and the EPC Contractor.

Baker & O’Brien submitted a technical expert report and several joint expert reports. The parties reached a settlement midway through the arbitration process.