Articles - Regulatory Compliance

For the U.S. biofuels industry, regulatory compliance is critical but complex, involving various federal and state regulations. Ensuring compliance with these regulations is not only challenging but essential to avoid costly fines and operational disruptions. The key is leveraging the right asset integrity management (AIM) software system to streamline the process and ensure readiness for any audit.

In the realm of asset integrity management, where every moment counts in financial terms, organizations must prioritize strategies that are not only cost-effective but also prioritize safety, regulatory compliance, asset integrity, operational efficiency, and data-driven decision-making. This is particularly crucial for owner operators who are burdened by unnecessary expenses resulting from over inspection, under inspection and outdated inspection methods. Notably, equipment failures annually cost the US refining industry billions, with a significant portion attributed to static equipment loss of containment.

In asset integrity, effective data management is crucial to enable data correlation, the application of risk models and risk-based inspection scheduling. The Oil & Gas, Chemical, Pipeline and other industry sectors with asset numbers in the thousands struggle with handling vast amount of unrelatable (siloed) data.

When it comes to the asset integrity management (AIM) of plants and facilities, it seems that everyone has a different definition of what regulatory compliance entails. With so many differing regulatory bodies across the globe (each with different requirements) it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly what steps a company needs to take to ensure that compliance will be met. Thus, it’s a challenging tenant of AIM to get right – and yet, with the risk of hefty fines in case of an audit failure, it’s also an expensive one to get wrong.

When it comes to implementing a mechanical integrity management program to protect critical assets, one of the most essential factors to consider is regulatory compliance. Adherence to regulatory standards protects owner operators from costly fines or possible insurance benefit losses that may accompany failed audits. Further, it expands the profit potential of the organization by improving equipment reliability and reducing costly instances of critical asset failure.

In a world dependent upon the transportation of fossil fuels, fewer industries have a more pressing need to ensure project success than that of pipeline construction and inspection. With safe, timely, project operations at the forefront of this industry’s needs, why is it still so dependent on dated, inefficient practices?