In my opinion, they welded the reinforcing plate to the nozzle first. This is a fillet weld. When it contracted after cooling down, it pushed the plate to its present position.
They should have welded the plate first to the vessel and then to the nozzle. 
The hat is white, so the obvious deduction is that it belongs to the good guy. Good guys always wear white hats, bad guys wear black hats.
Those of you who are over 70, like me, remember Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Bill Elliott, Gary Cooper, John Wayne etc. etc.? Good old times!

Giovanni S. Crisi
Sao Paulo - Brazil

PS written in April 2: I forgot of the most important of all of them: the Lonely Ranger.

That right there is simply amazing!

Glad I don't work on that job! It's got to be a joke.

Hi

Here in Ozzie land the authorities encourage everone to wear a hat when going out into the sun. Maybe this is the next step... Insist that even the vessels need to wear a hat! Maybe some of the other vessels on site wear girlie hats, but this vessel is clearly MACHO.

Regards
Niekie

There is a vessel in Houston that has a similar reinforcement method, its right out in the open so you can see it.

Now that thar is a 10 gallon hat even Hoss would like to have!!!

I was waiting to see if someone with more knowledge was going to respond to this thread but here goes... I believe that these are legitimate pads used for weld/nozzle reinforcement.  I have seen this type before but have never had to fabricate one and without some in depth research into the code I couldn't tell you the exact reason behind them but believe they are variations on the same theme.  I may be wrong but as I said I have seen this in the past and do not believe that this is a major malfunction by the fabricator.