Safety Alerts

Safety Alerts: A few lines extracted from lengthy reports. Check and ensure your plant/design is safe. Excluded: Fabrication/ commissioning/ failure to follow SOP

“Organisations have no memory. Only people have memory and they move on”. “Accidents are not due to lack of knowledge, but failure to use the knowledge we have” - Trevor Kletz

Visit regularly 

1. https://www.csb.gov/ Simulated incident videos

2. https://www.hse.gov.uk/ Incident Reports

3. https://aiche.informz.net/AIChE/pages/Beacon_Subscribe_Page Monthly Process Safety Beacon

4. https://www.icheme.org/membership/communities/special-interest-groups/safety-and-loss-prevention/resources/lessons-learned-database/ Reports

Read

1. Read ‘100 Largest Losses in Hydrocarbon Industry - Marsh’

2. BP Process Safety series (https://icheme.myshopify.com/collections/bp-process-safety-series) 

Why Accidents Happen

Read: http://www.aiche.org/sites/default/files/cep/20140728 Are There “Gorillas” in Your Plant?

Tasks that demand high attention, impairs our ability to recognize a rare, unexpected and potentially hazardous and catastrophic situation. Joggers and cyclists may wear bright jackets, yet you don’t “see” them if they turn-up at unexpected spots.

And the 3 AM syndrome. Someone wakes you up from deep sleep in LQ, hands you a walkie talkie and ask you to go fix something. You will start the wrong pump or close the wrong valve! (Thanks Natanael Bonicontro, for all the Petrobras-18 discussions!)

Marsh report: In the first 10 years, failures are operations related - learning curve. Once older than 30 years, steep rise in frequency and magnitude due to mechanical integrity - corrosion/ thinning. Thickness may not meet updated standards.

EPSC (European Process Safety Centre) 2019 incident route cause analysis attributes 14% to design; 35% to mechanical integrity - corrosion/ thinning and 51% to operations related. They recommend focus on 18 areas of operations, viz. Apply Double Isolation, Empty and De-energise before line-breaking, Monitor an open drain, Manage overrides of safety critical systems, Walk the Line, Verify leak tightness after maintenance work, Avoid working behind a single valve, Verify the condition of flexible hoses, Operate within safe limits, Control utility systems connected to a process, Report deficiencies on Safety Critical Equipment, Unplugging of equipment, Stay out of the Line of Fire, Control (Un)loading, Check atmosphere in fire box before igniting the burners, Avoid splash loading, Avoid run-away reaction, Report process safety incidents. See: https://epsc.be/Documents/EPSC+PS+Fundamentals/_/EPSC%20PS%20Fundamentals%20-%20English_website.pdf

Extracts from “What Went Wrong”, Trevor Kletz, Gulf Publications, are marked WWW. Extracts from BP Process Safety series are marked BP. 

Design Engineers: You may like to update your P&IDs with notes and caution boxes. Some of the incidents are not caught by Hazop scenarios. E.g. Opening a sour service vessel results in Pyrophoric Fire.

Plant Engineers: You may also mark-up the P&IDs with notes and caution boxes. As people move on, their insight should not be lost. A well informed operation team is the Best Asset.