Drawing-traceable LDAR component inventory.

EPA's Leak Detection and Repair: A Best Practices Guide (October 2007) specifically identifies inventory misalignment between the governing P&IDs and the LDAR database as a chronic source of program deficiency and audit finding. Armeta closes this gap by producing the inventory directly from the drawings that govern it.

Today's LDAR inventory workflow

The typical LDAR program builds and maintains its component inventory through:

1. 01Initial inventory construction — engineers read the governing P&IDs and transcribe regulated components into the LDAR database (LeakDAS, Guideware, or equivalent).
2. 02Field walkdowns — LDAR technicians walk the facility to verify the initial inventory against physical installation, adding missed components and removing retired ones.
3. 03Ongoing maintenance — MOC-driven additions as new components are installed; retirements as components are removed from service.
4. 04Periodic reconciliation — full or partial walkdowns to re-verify inventory completeness, typically annually or biennially.

Each step introduces potential for drift. Transcription errors in step 1. Missed components during walkdown. MOC updates that don't propagate to the LDAR database. Inventory records that persist after components are physically removed.

How Armeta transforms LDAR inventory

Armeta's extraction engine produces structured LDAR component inventories directly from the governing P&IDs. For each regulated component, the output includes:

• Component type (valve, pump, compressor seal, flange, connector, pressure relief device, sampling connection, open-ended line, agitator seal).
• Tag or label.
• Service classification (gas/vapor, light liquid, heavy liquid).
• Size, material of construction, and relevant specifications.
• Source drawing number and source region on the drawing.
• Cross-drawing connectivity for line identification.
• Revision baseline identifying which drawing revision the inventory was extracted from.

The inventory is delivered as a structured export compatible with common LDAR database formats, or via API for integration with LDAR management systems.

The critical difference — drawing-traceability

Every component in an Armeta-produced inventory is traceable back to a specific location on a specific drawing at a specific revision. When an EPA auditor asks where a specific component came from, the answer is a drawing citation, not an engineer's memory or a spreadsheet row with no provenance.

For enforcement-exposed facilities, this drawing-traceability is consequential. The difference between “we believe this inventory is complete” and “every component in this inventory traces to a specific drawing region” is the difference between a finding and a defensible position.

The engineering outcome

For a typical refinery LDAR program with 70,000+ regulated components:

• Manual initial inventory construction: 6–12 months of engineering work.
• Armeta-supported initial inventory construction: 6–10 weeks of focused engineering review.
• Ongoing reconciliation with MOC updates: automatic via Armeta's compare stage.
• Audit defense: drawing-traceable for every component, regardless of when it was added.

Regulatory context

LDAR is mandated across multiple Clean Air Act programs:

• NSPS under 40 CFR Part 60 (including Subparts VV, VVa, VVb, GGG, GGGa, OOOOb, OOOOc).
• NESHAP under 40 CFR Part 61 (including Subpart J for benzene).
• MACT under 40 CFR Part 63 (including Subpart H for HON and Subpart CC for refineries).

All measurements under these rules are made using EPA Method 21 (codified at 40 CFR Part 60, Appendix A-7), with leak definition thresholds ranging from 500 ppmv to 10,000 ppmv depending on the specific rule, component type, and service.