Passive Fire Protection Solution

Passive Fire Protection is today an essential part of all Oil&Gas and petrochemical plants.

Every measure is taken to reduce the risk to a minimum, but unfortunately as have been seen in some disastrous examples, accidents do occur. This is where Passive Fire Protection (PFP) plays an important role. If an oil or gas spill accident has occurred and ignited, it’s essential that the integrity of load bearing structures and pipes carrying hydrocarbons or fire fighting fluids, are protected from failure and prevented from further escalating the fire scenario.

NORSOK standards are developed by the Norwegian petroleum industry to ensure adequate safety, value adding and cost effectiveness for petroleum industry and operations. The NORSOK standards also represent the “best practise” in the industry and are being adopted by companies also outside the NCS. The NORSOK R-004 Piping and equipment insulation covers the minimum requirement for thermal, acoustic, personnel protection and fire protection for pipes, valves, flanges, vessels, equipment etc. for offshore/onshore installations. The insulation Class 5 specifies Fire Protection and is aimed at reducing the heat input from a fire and extending the time it takes for the temperature of the protected media to reach the critical temperature. If no other fire scenarios and critical temperature is specified for the project, the fire protection shall as a minimum limit the temperature to 400°C in a hydrocarbon fire lasting for 30 minutes according to ISO 834. It’s however common that the fire protection scenarios are far more stringent than the minimum in the standard. 

Selected fire protection shall in all cases be based on relevant fire testing. The fire tests falls mainly into two categories;

  • Resistance against a fire in a pool of hydrocarbons; “HC fire”
  • Resistance against a fire caused by ignited pressurised gas; Jet Fire

Read more about certification here >>

Benarx® range of products for passive fire protection are designed to meet stringent requirement given by the various projects and is certified to withstand more than 120 minutes of HC fire and Jet Fire. The Benarx® product range is designed to meet all installation scenarios. The pre-fabricated solutions reduced the installation time and can save valuable time or resources in the project implementation phase. The Benarx product range also has a lower life cycle cost than comparable solutions.