Changes in State legislation in 1995 governing the safety and inspection of pressure equipment, presented an opportunity for an Australian refmery to optimise its turnaround inspection programs and schedule. In response to these changes, the refmery conducted a risk assessment on its pressured equipment, and developed and implemented a Risk-Based Inspection program. This paper describes the development and implementation of the program and accompanying software in 1995/96, including its application for scoping major 1997 turnarounds at the refmery. The paper describes how risk is assessed against
individual failure or deterioration mechanisms for pressure equipment, articulates the benefits gained Tom the program, and describes proposed future improvements. The program is unusual in that it directly relates inspection intervals for individual pieces of pressure equipment to risk, and provides the ability to optimise inspection intervals based on risk. The program has delivered optimised unit-by-unit inspection plans for the refmery, an enduring process for assessing inspection intervals, and provided focus on specific corrosion and reliability issues presenting high risks to the refmery. Direct benefits include a proven 35% reduction in turnaround costs, and an improvement in plant equipment reliability through more focused inspection, quantitative assessment of risk and design-out of problems. Keywords: Risk, risk-based inspection, refinery, pressure equipment, failure mechanism, turnaround, inspection interval, reliability