(57bc) Three Reasons Major Event Risk Management Fails on Capital Project

The goal of process safety is to prevent fires, explosions and major chemical release from industrial processes through the application of sound risk management principals. Most organizations have extensive experience managing risk in an operating environment, but little practice managing risk in a capital project. Engineering design and technology providers are experienced at project design and execution; however, process safety is rarely a core focus of the project. Collectively the representatives in a project team may have knowledge and desire to effect risk management, but too often they experience “If only” moments before start-up and hand-over. Capital projects offer a huge opportunity to make step changes in process safety; however, traditional project execution models must evolve if the opportunity is to be realized. This paper will discuss three reasons effective major event risk management is compromised in projects, provide examples of cause and effect relationships leading to the failures, and offer suggestions for improvement.