Elements of Process Safety

Process safety is about controlling risk of failures and errors; controlling risk is primarily about reducing the risk of human error. All elements of Risk-Based Process Safety (RBPS) and alternative standards for process safety (such as US OSHA's standard for Process Safety Management [PSM] or ACC...

An NEP inspection can be very resource intensive; OSHA has received over well over 10,000 pages of documentation at one refinery during an NEP inspection. Developing a strategy that aligns with your corporate governance and protocols could be the key to a successful outcome. The strategy should...

Many LOPA scenarios have an independent protection layer (IPL) credit for operator intervention to prevent or mitigate the scenario. It is often difficult for the LOPA team or other safety teams to assess if the appropriate operator response credit is being taken. To allow a more consistent...

A small specialty chemicals plant experienced an unusual power outage as the result of a lightning strike. The lightning strike damaged several of the electrical distribution systems and local controls and instrumentation systems in such a way that the extent of the damages to controls systems were...

Accident root cause investigations often may identify unplanned power outages as the cause of a catastrophic accident. Unplanned power outages can be an initiating event that leads to an emergency shutdown of a process unit. If the emergency shutdown is managed incorrectly, it can result in an...

A procedural operation consists of a set of tasks that are conducted in a set way time-after-time to achieve a certain goal such as starting or shutting down a unit or making a product. As demonstrated by Paul McKenzie (Bristol Myers Squibb) at the WBF NA Conference 2007 in Baltimore, it could even...

On May 24, 2007 an explosion and subsequent fire destroyed a tank farm located at a gasoline purification plant in Sløvåg, Norway. In addition to the tank farm, an office building and some neighboring tank trucks were destroyed. There were no casualties in the accident, but at least two people...

Risk assessments use frequency data mostly from generic sources, typically from the North Sea offshore environment or from process facility records mainly from Europe. As QRA's are being applied increasingly in North America and in the developing world, novel techniques are necessary to establish...

On July 27, 2009, OSHA issued a National Emphasis Program for the chemical industry (“the Chemical NEP”). Pursuant to the Chemical NEP, OSHA will conduct PSM inspections of numerous chemical facilities. This presentation will review lessons learned from OSHA's Refining NEP, particularly the OSHA...

On February 7, 2008, at about 7:15 p.m., a series of sugar dust explosions at the Imperial Sugar manufacturing facility in Port Wentworth, Georgia, resulted in 14 worker fatalities. Thirty six workers were treated for serious burns and injuries—some caused permanent, life altering conditions. The...