Operational Risk, Process Safety

Inherently safer philosophy represents a slightly different approach to risk mitigation. Instead of focusing on mitigating risks, an inherently safer alternative focuses on eliminating the hazards.Let us look at couple of inherently safer examples.

Because of their dependability and long effective lifespan, lithium ion rechargeable batteries are used in almost all modern electronic gadgets – cell phones, laptops, digital cameras, power tools, video games, PDA, household devices, e-bikes, security lighting, iPods, and automobiles.  As the electronic market grows, it is evident that the lithium battery market will grow exponentially!

In rare cases, lithium batteries can catch fire – often in dramatic ways.

Green is “In”.

Consumers, retail stores, and corporate policies are all going green.

But just because you have a green technology does not mean you have ZERO risks. Let me give you a couple of examples.

A few weeks ago, I had written about a recent fire at the alkylation unit in Citgo’s Corpus refinery, and raised the question about HF usage. Today, I would like to further delve into the alternate technologies for alklyation and also take this opportunity to summarize feedback I have received from a few readers: Mike Bordeaux, Sujith Panikkar, Menno van der Hauw, and Fabienne Salimi.

A chemical facility is mandated to have an emergency response plan by OSHA PSM and EPA RMP. An accident in the plant, a hurricane, and a potential terrorist attack are a few scenarios that mandate emergency response and planning. However, there is a vast difference between having an emergency plan and having a plan that works.

Read the remainder of the article to find out if your facility’s emergency plan is an effective one.

Process Safety has evolved significantly since the introduction of PSM in 1992. Here are top five challenges facing the process safety community today.

Reactive chemicals refer to chemicals that can react with self or with other chemicals or contaminants leading to extremely high reaction rates. The high reaction rates in turn can lead to overpressure within the vessel and possible explosion. As a graduate student, I looked at behavior of reactive chemical hydroxylamine which was involved in an explosion at Concept Sciences facility in Allentown, PA.

Take a look at the following video on how hydroxylamine reacts upon addition of metal solution.

How would you answer the following question:

Is refinery A safer than refinery B?

Hurricanes pose serious risks to physical assets in chemical plants and refineries. During hurricanes, plant equipment can be damaged by high winds and/or flood waters. I’m hoping your refinery has adequate protection against flooding…so let us see what risks are posed by high winds.

There is a big difference between proactively mitigating risks vs. reacting to incidents. Why do corporations wait to take active safety measures till an incident occurs? Because being proactive is hard…very hard and requires a lot of discipline.

RAGAGEP stands for Recognized And Generally Accepted Good Engineering Practices.

Specifically, OSHA 29 CFR 1910.119 (D)(3)(ii) states:The employer shall document that equipment complies with recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices.

EPA RMP also refers to RAGAGEP in 40 CFR 68.73:Inspection and testing procedures shall follow recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices. [Read more…]

On the morning of July 19, a fire in CITGO’s Corpus Christi refinery injured a worker. The incident occurred in the alkylation unit of the refinery.

The refinery used Hydrogen Fluoride (HF) as a catalyst for alklyation .  Typically in the alkylation process, isobutane  and olefins are combined (in presence of HF) to produce a high-octane chemical used in premium gasoline.

Following the release of natural gas, it can be ignited resulting in fire which in turn can potentially result in an explosion. So how likely will a gas release ignite?If you are interested in the major failure modes for natural gas transmission pipelines reported, please refer to an earlier post – External Damage: Number One Cause Natural Gas Pipeline Releases.The ignition probability is related to leak size. Let us consider three hole sizes consistent with European Gas Pipeline Incident Data Group (EGIG) database – small (pin-hole leak, 2-cm or less), medium (2-cm < Leak < pipe diameter) and large (full bore rupture, FBR). The table below summarizes ignition probabilities from EGIG report.

In our daily lives we often become immune to risks around us. For example, there are around 40,000 annual fatalities from automobile accidents in the US and yet we do not think twice before getting into their cars. We eat a burger ignoring the risks of heart problems!

A few weeks ago I met with Cesar de Leon who is a pipeline safety expert (http://www.pipelinesafetyconsultant.com) – he worked at the DOT Office of Pipeline Safety for over 23 years and currently resides in Boerne, Texas. Cesar was telling me about legal and technical issues arising in the field of natural gas pipelines from existing regulations… I will discuss these issues in greater details in latter posts. Before getting into current issues, I would like you to read the following guest post from Cesar that provides a brief overview of pipeline integrity management plan.