Archive for the ‘Process Safety’ Category
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
Chemical processes and designs are increasingly being evaluated for inherent safety - i.e. reduce the hazard rather than the risk. The philosophy behind inherent safety is 'What You Don't Have, Can't Leak' and so you take necessary steps to reduce the hazard.
Issues where inherently safer approaches can be successfully applied are fairly ...
Posted in Inherent Safety, Process Safety, Risk Analysis | No Comments »
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
OSHA Process Safety Management (PSM) program is nearly two decades old and I believe that the 14 PSM elements provide a good basic framework for facilities to create a safety program.
What OSHA PSM lacks is quality metric.
Let me explain further.
For example, one of the elements of the OSHA PSM is emergency planning. As a part of ...
Posted in Emergency Response Plan, OSHA PSM, Process Safety, Regulations | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) are a part of today’s corporate growth strategy. As a part of M&A due diligence various critical business issues are evaluated. But what about safety performance of the company you are looking to acquire or merge with?
You will say that most M&A in oil and gas/chemical ...
Posted in Business Risks, Process Safety, Risk Analysis, Safety Culture | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
When you are driving on a highway, usually there is a speed limit. If you exceed this limit, a cop can give you a ticket.
In Houston, most highways have a speed limit of 65-70 miles per hour…although most drivers appear to assume it implies “90-mph is okay”.
Let us say the ...
Posted in EPA RMP, OSHA PSM, Process Safety, Regulations | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
Generally speaking, 5-6 things have to go wrong for an incident to occur. Furthermore, these events or failures have to occur in a certain sequence.
The characteristics of mega disasters is that 5-6 events with fairly low probabilities of occurrence line up.
Such rare incidents are referred to by many names within the risk management community - ...
Posted in Incident Investigation, Insurance, Process Safety, Risk Analysis | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
About a year ago, the Minerals Management Services (MMS) proposed a new rule that would require operators of oil and gas operations in the US Outer Continental Shelf to develop and implement Safety and Environmental Management System (SEMS).
It is expected that the rule will be promulgated sometime this year.
Based on ...
Posted in Offshore, Process Safety, Regulations | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
[Table = 13]
Source: Compressed Natural Gas Safety Bulletin, SB-2, 1992.
Posted in Confined Space, Health, Process Safety, Toxicity | 1 Comment »
Friday, June 18th, 2010
We all know that air is mostly nitrogen...79% to be precise. What may not be a common knoweldge is that colorless odorless Nitrogen has led to asphyxiation and fatalities and is a risk particularly for personnel working in confined spaces and personnel utilizing breathing air systems.
According to the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) research there were 80 ...
Posted in Confined Space, Process Safety | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
Take a look at the following video from Dominion Power:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7viGDALSoJE
And if you have time also check out this safety annoucement from Southwest:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvdCFYLf_JI
Posted in Process Safety, Risk Communication | No Comments »
Friday, June 11th, 2010
In Dec. of 2004, I attended a conference in India to commemorate 20 years of Bhopal. After the conference, a few attendees took a train to Bhopal to visit the plant site. While in Bopal I visited my aunt - her name is Maya. She was in her house in Bhopal ...
Posted in Chemical Accidents, Process Safety, Regulations | 1 Comment »
