Process Safety Management System Performance Measures for the Chemical Industry

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) has developed a guideline describing a new risk‐based approach that an organization can use in defining and implementing a process safety management system specific to its unique needs. Recognizing the importance of safety culture as a determinant of safety performance, CCPS has included process safety culture as one element in the new risk‐based process safety (RBPS) model. This paper will describe both the new process safety culture element and its integration in the overall RBPS model. © 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 26:203–208, 2007

Layer of protection analysis (LOPA) is a simplified chemical process risk assessment tool that is used to determine if sufficient independent protection layers (IPLs) are in place to meet an organization's risk tolerance criteria for a particular hazardous scenario. LOPA can determine how much additional risk reduction is needed for the scenario and can help in specifying the additional protection layers.The Center for Chemical Process Safety books, Layer of Protection Analysis—Simplified Process Risk Assessment (Center for Chemical Process Safety, Layer of Protection Analysis: Simplified Process Risk Assessment, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, New York, NY, 2001) and Guidelines for Safe and Reliable Instrumented Protective Systems (Center for Chemical Process Safety, Guidelines for Safe and Reliable Instrumented Protective Systems, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, New York, NY, 2007), identify required attributes of independent protective layers. In more than 15 years experience working with LOPA, I have frequently observed confusion about these attributes among LOPA analysts, protection layer implementers, and operations personnel (Study and Champion, Process Saf Prog 28 (2009), 300–307).Therefore, this article discusses the characteristics of IPLs, gives examples to avoid confusion and misapplication of the characteristics, gives an easily remembered phrase to screen candidate IPLs, and provides sample tools to confirm IPL compliance with the characteristics. The article discusses the importance of a safety requirements specification for safety‐instrumented functions and proposes analogous documentation for other IPLs. The article gives guidance to determine when protection layers or scenarios require more detailed analysis such as event tree analysis or fault tree analysis. analysis. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2011

Process safety practices and process safety management (PSM) systems have been applied since the various incidents and accidents in the refining and petrochemical industries over many years. In the US, the Center for Chemical Process Safety created risk-based process safety as the framework for the next generation of PSM. In petroleum refining and petrochemical industries, companies are required by law to have occupational safety programs, with a focus on personal safety, as the focus of these programs is to prevent harm to personnel from workplace accidents such as fall, cuts, strains, and so on. Petroleum refineries are one of the major energy-consuming industries that contribute to a major proportion of the production cost. Energy in a typical refinery is 60% of variable costs and 1% improvement in energy equals to ~$650,000 year saving for a 100,000 bpsd refinery.

Oil & Gas industries are continuously striving to increase production capacities, achieving cost efficiencies, and venturing in technically challenging areas to maintain their respective market shares. Efficiency in Upstream operations with reduction in production costs, with high focus on safety and asset integrity remains a challenge. Similarly stretching the margin of refined barrel of oil, expanding petrochemical production, developing new high value products to meet growing demand and increasing refining capacity drives operation excellence in downstream operations. Operations of aged faculties in harsh environmental conditions creates challenging operating conditions for any Oil & Gas operator. In the Oil and Gas industry, both onshore and offshore, there are large amounts of hazardous chemicals on drilling or production sites and major incidents resulting in loss of primary containments (LoPC) in Oil & Gas industries from both Upstream & Downstream segments has enhanced focus on asset integrity, process safety and operational excellence. Several types of processes, in the oil and gas industry, have the potential for chemical releases and associated fire, safety, and health hazards due to the nature of these releases. These losses may result in asset damage, occupational injuries, environmental impact, and loss of production and or company reputation. Process safety is a combination of engineering and management controls aimed to prevent catastrophic incidents and near misses, such as structural collapse/damage, fire & explosions, releases of energy or hazardous substances such as chemicals and petroleum products. All such failures were subjected to incident investigation process, aimed to identify root causes of the event and recommending corrective actions to prevent recurrence of such events in future. A critical review of over Fifty (50) process safety events (PSE), both in Upstream and Downstream segments, was undertaken and findings & causes of these events were mapped with Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) Process Safety Elements & Pillars to assess the strength of process safety barriers. Data indicates that Inadequate Identification of Worksite/Job Hazards (under category of Management Supervision/ Employee Leadership) was the topmost root cause of process safety incidents representing 26% of all root causes. It represented inadequacies in task risk assessment where a particular risk was not identified or identified risk was not effectively controlled. Approximately half (55%) of incident causes were under themes of Hazard Identification & Risk Analysis, Auditing, Asset Integrity and Reliability. This novel approach to prevent process safety incidents by integrating & strengthening process safety & operation excellence frameworks in Upstream & Downstream segments of Oil & Gas operations will be assist in preventing incidents and is adaptable by other operators and companies.

This issue contains the story of another legend of process safety, Dennis Hendershot. Publishing Dennis' story is the highlight of my tenure to date as the editor-in-chief of Process Safety Progress. Dennis is not only an inspiration to all of us, he is also my friend and mentor. You will read about formative parts of his career in process safety in his article. I first met Dennis in 1975 when he joined the process research and development department of Rohm and Haas after returning from an assignment in England. At that time, I was a new engineer working on the scale-up of a multistep chemical process that included a nitration reaction. Dennis was also assigned to this project. I benefited greatly from his experience and saw his very logical mind working up close. Our career paths diverged for several years, and then merged when I joined the process safety department at Rohm and Haas. He was the founding member of that group and became my mentor in process safety. As I said, we also became friends. My wife and I saw the Hendershots frequently. Later in life my oldest daughter was even a babysitter for his children. His career has many highlights, which will be described in more detail in the article. He has been extremely active in process safety, writing 66 articles for PSP, CEP, and other publications (per Research Gate). I am proud to say I coauthored an article with him in the November 2000 issue of CEP, “Screen Reactive Hazards Early in Process Development”. I was later told by the editor of CEP that it was one of the most downloaded articles. When Rohm and Haas decided to test out a new hazard analysis technique called HAZOP, it was Dennis who was called on to lead it. After Bhopal, several chemical companies urged the AIChE to organize activities to improve process safety within the industry, leading to the formation of the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS). Dennis represented Rohm and Haas on many of CCPS's technical committees. His contributions include being on the technical committees for books on hazard evaluation, quantitative risk assessment, and inherent safety. When the Chemical Safety Board recommended the CCPS produce guidance about chemical reactive hazards in their 2002 report, Dennis was one of the representatives called on to write “Essential Practices for Managing Chemical Reactivity Hazards”. When the CSB recommended BP do a study of its process safety culture, Dennis was chosen as the only chemical engineer on what became known as the Baker Report about BP's process safety culture (the chair of the panel was James Baker, a former Secretary of State). Dennis is an expert in inherent safety, and this issue of PSP contains a short primer on the topic. When the editorial board suggested inherent safety as a topic for this primer, Dennis was the obvious person to choose to write this. The first group of four process safety legends, Daniel Crowl, Hans Pasman, Pete Lodal, and John Murphy, were reported on in the March 2021 issue. The second group of four, John Herber, Kathy Kas, Louisa Nara, and Ron Wiley, were reported on in the July 2023 issue. Rather than to wait 2 years and cover four people at a time, it is our intention to select someone as a Legend of Process Safety two to four times a year. The editorial board has developed a list of candidates, but we welcome any suggestions you may have. My contact information can be found at the PSP web page under About/Contacts.

Guidelines for integrating process safety management, environment, safety, health and quality. Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), American Institute of Chemical Engineers, New York, NY, (1996), 173 Pages, [ISBN No.: 0‐8169‐0683‐1], U.S. List Price: $120.00

Guidelines for preventing human error in process safety. Center for Chemical Process Safety, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, New York, NY, (1994), 390 Pages, [ISBN No.:0‐8169‐0461‐8], U.S. List Price: $140.00

In 2007 BAPCO won the prestigious Robert W Campbell award for integrating safety into its primary business processes. The team who reviewed BAPCO processes on behalf of the Awarding agency made specific reference to the excellent quality of HAZOPs that BAPCO had conducted and reported. Such commendation for BAPCO HAZOPs did not come by chance. BAPCO has a very strong and rich tradition in this field; arguably the pioneers in this region. Bert Lawley, inventor of the HAZOP process, published his first paper on the topic in 1976; BAPCO conducted their first HAZOP meeting in as early as 1981! The traditional P&ID (Piping and Instrument Diagram) line-by-line guideword-based HAZOP remains a very powerful tool in the armory of modern designers and engineers in minimizing hazard and operability related concerns from process plants in continuous as well as batch operations. Nonetheless, BAPCO have strengthened its effectiveness through developing some best practices of our own and adopting some recommended by other well-known authorities such as the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS). One noteworthy best practice developed by BAPCO is the adoption of a comprehensive list of "Global Parameters." This is generally referred to as the last Node in HAZOPs and it addresses unit-wide or plant-wide concerns related to civil and structural integrity, instrumentation philosophy, fire water system, fireproofing, environmental concerns, reliability, emergency shutdown systems … the list goes on (currently there are 50 items under Global Parameters that BAPCO HAZOPs take into account). In addition to the Global Parameters mentioned above, this paper describes the following best practices that we apply to our HAZOPs: use of specific checklists which will captures all the items that are not covered under Global Parameters, review of emergency inventory isolation block valves, modeling of gas blow-by scenarios, and overpressure protection. HAZOP is a continually improving and evolving process in BAPCO. Our recent contacts with reputable engineering consultants have given us feedback regarding current best practices with EPC companies. We in BAPCO are committed to striving for excellence.

Industry over the last two to three years has put a lot of effort into implementing Process Safety Metrics. This is a good practice but, now that we have metrics data, how are we utilizing them to improve process safety performance? Air Products has been monitoring process safety performance for the last five years using combined Center for Chemical Process Safety and American Petroleum Institute RP 754 metrics. This article will highlight the approach we have applied, both through our lagging and leading indicators, to drive our process safety performance improvement programs. It will review the programs we initiated, leading indicators we identified, and how it also helped to improve our process safety culture. This article will also look at the importance of measuring severity and its impact in driving leadership behaviors. We will also discuss future opportunities to improve process safety performance via metrics analysis and follow‐up initiatives. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 33: 172–178, 2014

Center for Chemical Process Safety of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers

Software systems have been used in chemical industry process safety operation and design to improve its efficiency. This paper provides a brief review and analysis of the state of the art and impacts of software systems in process safety. A study was carried out by interviewing personnel in charge of process safety practices in the Malaysian chemical process industry and digging into literature of technology for process safety. This article explores the functional and operational characteristics of software systems for safety and attempts to categorize the software according to its level of impact in the management hierarchy. The study contributes to better understanding of the roles of Information Communication Technology in process safety, the future trends and possible gaps for research and development.
 Keywords: process safety; software systems; computer-aided plant safety; process safety management system.

Risk assessment and risk reduction of an acrylonitrile production plant

Application of Bayesian network and artificial intelligence to reduce accident/incident rates in oil & gas companies

T8-1 - Sources and solutions of fire and explosion in semiconductor fabrication processes

Chapter 10 - The Role of Mechanical Integrity in Chemical Process Safety