Hydrocarbon Processing - December 2020 - 66

Environment
and Safety
N. PINTO, Emerson, Houston, Texas

Applying tools to strengthen safety
and risk management
The same characteristics that make hydrocarbons useful as fuels can also make
refineries, and any other areas where
processing or storage takes place, potentially dangerous. Those who work in such
plants depend on effective safety systems,
training and a constant awareness of the
potential for harm. This enables many
well-run and well-maintained facilities
with conscientious people at all levels to
compile a long record of safety.
However, between February and April
2020, three major refinery fires (FIG. 1) in
the U.S. showed that there are still real hazards despite all the efforts to prevent such
events. This suggests four primary questions when it comes to fire prevention:
1. Are the dangers not fully
understood?
2. Is proper training in place for
personnel?

3. Are up-to-date technical solutions
employed?
4. Is the combined effectiveness
of all the safety measures in place
adequate?
The following briefly examines each of
these questions.
For the first question, it is difficult to
argue that individual companies, standards organizations and insurance companies have put inadequate efforts into
understanding the nature of the dangers
involved. This has been the subject of
lengthy study, examining every imaginable scenario of how fires can start and
how to prevent them. There is no shortage
of resources available today.
Regarding the second question, anyone researching major safety incidents of
the last 10 yr-20 yr will find that plant personnel can certainly be a major contribut-

FIG. 1. Most facilities maintain safe operations, but incidents still happen.

DECEMBER 2020 | HydrocarbonProcessing.com

ing factor, if not the outright cause. This
is often the result of short staffing and/or
inadequate training, and, sometimes, violations of procedures to meet production
goals. It can also come in the form of management's cutting of maintenance budgets,
resulting in malfunctioning instrumentation remaining unfixed, and also leaving
operators with poor situational awareness.
Bad information results in bad decisions,
and, consequently, in undesirable results.
Regarding the third question, there is
no shortage of potential technical solutions. Over the years, countless companies
have developed instruments and systems
to detect when a process upset or equipment failure is beginning to escalate into
something bigger and can lead to a loss of
containment. The problem is how these
solutions should be evaluated and applied
to deliver the highest level of protection.
The fourth question is the most difficult to answer. No technical solution is
ever 100% effective. People can get careless and ignore their training. Safety mechanisms of all kinds are ultimately capable
of reducing risk, but none can eliminate
it entirely. Some solutions also impair the
ability to operate effectively, so it is possible to go too far with protections. Therefore, a company must ask itself: Have we
done enough to protect our people and
plant, while providing ourselves the ability to operate in ways that allow us to fulfill
our production and financial goals?
Different companies approach this
with different attitudes, as examinations
of various incidents will bear out. While
most companies are very fastidious about
safety, some may not be as diligent. Still,
this is not a decision that a company ultimately makes solely on its own, since

http://www.HydrocarbonProcessing.com

Hydrocarbon Processing - December 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hydrocarbon Processing - December 2020