Safety Moment #105: Process Safety Wisdom
This Safety Moment is one in a series to do with the process safety profession. Other publications in the series are Safety Moment #54: The Process Safety Professional, Safety Moment #79: The Process Safety Consultant and Chapter 20 of the book Process Risk and Reliability Management. Further guidance is also provided in the ebook 52 Process Safety Moments which contains Safety Moment #22: Clear…
Safety Moment #104: Behavior-Based Safety
A behavior-based safety (BBS) program aims to make permanent changes in the manner in which people work. Safety becomes a way of life that is baked into everyone's behavior. It is important to recognize, however, that a BBS program does not attempt to chance who a person is, and it most certainly is not a pop-psychology program. The program is directed just to a person's actions.
BBS helps…
Safety Moment #103: Human Error Modeling
Human performance is inherently unpredictable. Human beings are, after all, human. However, those working in industrial risk management have developed means of modeling types of human error, and the rates at which they can occur. One such technique is known as THERP (Technique for Human Error Rate Prediction). The method uses Boolean logic to model and predict human error rates. Hence it can be…
Safety Moment #102: ALARP and Acceptable Risk
Fundamentally risk is subjective; it is not possible to define what level of risk is acceptable dispassionately and objectively. Any two risk scenarios are inherently different from one another due to people’s inherent understanding and acceptance of different types of risk, their emotions, memories, hopes and fears.
Factors that affect risk perception include the following:
Degree of…
Safety Moment #97: Stairways and Ladders
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Safety Moment #94: Fault Tree Analysis
This post has moved to https://netzero2050.substack.com/p/fault-tree-analysishttps://netzero2050.substack.com/p/fault-tree-analysis.
Copyright © Ian Sutton. 2023. All Rights Reserved.
Safety Moment #93: The Fundamentals of Process Safety Risk
This article has moved to the post The Fundamentals of Process Safety Risk.
Copyright © Ian Sutton. 2023. All Rights Reserved.
Safety Moment #89: Layout of Process Facilities
Siting / Layout
The words ‘siting’ and ‘layout’ are often used interchangeably, but, strictly speaking, they have different meanings. Siting is concerned with the location of a facility. For example, if a company is planning on building a new chemical plant its management may consider the relative merits of sites in Texas, Mexico or China. Layout, on the other hand, is to do with the locations…
Safety Moment #88: Blinds in Process Piping
The contents of this Safety Moment have moved to Blinds and Piping.
Safety Moment #87: Hydrogen Sulfide
Hydrogen Sulfide
Hydrogen Sulfide is a highly toxic chemical compound that is found in a wide variety of oil processing operations. High concentrations of H2S may be present in crude oil, molten sulfur, tank and pit-bottom sludge and produced water, all of which may release H2S when agitated, heated, or depressurized. Typical operational activities where personnel may be exposed to H2S include…
Safety Moment #84: Prestartup / Operational Readiness Reviews
The purpose of a Prestartup / Operational Readiness Review (PSR) is to ensure that initial start-ups, or start-ups following major project work, proceed safely and smoothly. In particular, the PSR will check to make sure that all project activities are complete and that the system is ready for safe operation. It is a tool that the operations and maintenance departments use to make ensure that…
Safety Moment #83: The One-Legged Stool
Reproduced with permission
Further thoughts on this topic are provided at the post The One-Legged Stool.
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Early in the 20th century a factory in the town of Pitsea in England manufactured the explosives using nitro-glycerine.
Making nitro-glycerine was very dangerous. Concentrated acids were mixed with glycerine in huge vats. If too much glycerine was added…
Safety Moment #82: Confined Space Entry
A Confined Space is a space which is large enough for a worker to enter but has limited openings for entry and exit and is not intended for continuous employee occupancy. Entry is considered to have occurred as soon as any part of the entrant's body breaks the plane of an opening into the space. Therefore it is not permissible, for example, to take a quick breath and to put one's head into a…
Safety Moment #81: Process Safety Fundamentals
The material in this Safety Moment has been moved to The Principles of Process Safety Management.
Safety Moment #79: The Process Safety Consultant
This Safety Moment is one in a series to do with the process safety profession. Other publications in the series are Safety Moment #54: The Process Safety Professional, Safety Moment #105: Process Safety Wisdom and Chapter 20 of the book Process Risk and Reliability Management. Further guidance is also provided in the ebook 52 Process Safety Moments which contains Safety Moment #22: Clear Your…
Safety Moment #77: NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material)
NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material) is found in many naturally-occurring materials, including some oil and gas deposits.
Sources of NORM include:
Uranium;
Thorium;
Radium; and
Lead-210
When NORM is transported to the surface in production streams it can precipitate and accumulate inside tubing strings, surface equipment and piping as sulfate and carbonate deposits. NORM can…
Safety Moment #76: Plugged Process Piping
Process lines, piping and valves frequently become plugged. If line pluggage is a recurring problem it is best to try and identify ways in which the problem can be prevented from occurring. If that solution is not possible then valves, drains, tees and connections should be designed so that it is possible to remove the pluggage safely and with minimum time and expense.
Prevention of Pluggage
It…
Safety Moment #75: Pressure Tests
After a piece of equipment or piping that operates under pressure has been opened and then reassembled (buttoned up) it must be pressure tested before being put back into service.
There are two types of pressure test. The first is a tightness or leak test, performed after the equipment has been opened but not modified in any way. Typically this type of test is conducted after the item was opened…
Safety Moment #74: Contractors in the Process Industries
For further information on this topic, please refer to our ebook Contractors.
Contractors play a vital and increasingly important role in the design, construction, operation and maintenance of process and energy facilities, as can be seen from the chart shown below. It can be seen that, over the last twenty years or so, the number of contractor work hours has increased by about a fact of…
Safety Moment #73: Storage Tanks in the Process and Energy Industries
September 2022
OSHA has opened the Process Safety standard for comment and revision. One of the items on their list is to do with storage tanks. Item II.1 reads,
Clarifying the exemption for atmospheric storage tanks
Some thoughts as to what direction this statement may take are provided in the post Update to OSHA's PSM Regulation. Part 4: Atmospheric Storage Tanks…
Safety Moment #69: That Would Be Telling
The Kletz Legacy
One of the founders of the process safety discipline was Trevor Kletz (1922-2013). Probably his best eulogy is also the simplest, "He saved lives."
As we reflect on Trevor's contributions it is clear that one of his greatest gifts was that of telling stories. He wrote extensively on technical topics such as hazards analysis and inherent safety, but he is probably best…
Safety Moment #66: The Most Important PSM Elements — Participation
In an earlier Safety Moment we saw that the term ‘Process Safety Management’ (PSM) can become diluted to the point where it loses any meaning. This is unfortunate. The term is not just another way of describing industrial safety — it has a tight and specific significance, as explained in Process Safety Management. The description discusses the three words that make up the term: ‘Process’, ‘Safety…
Safety Moment #65: Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is the last line of defense for keeping a person safe. Every effort should be made to protect the wearer ahead of time. The Irish Health & Safety Authority provides the following precautionary statements with regard to PPE.
PPE only protects the wearer.
It is ineffective if not working or fitted properly.
Theoretical levels of protection are seldom…
Safety Moment #64: Equipment Spacing (Hydrocarbon Storage Tanks)
Safety Moment #57: Equipment Spacing (Pumps/Fireproofed Pipe Racks) described the layout of pumps in a process or energy facility. Continuing the discussion, this Safety Moment describes some of the issues to be considered with regard to the layout of storage tanks, sometimes referred to as “API Tanks”. (The design and operation of storage tanks is discussed in Safety Moment #73: Storage Tanks in…
Safety Moment #62: From Complicated to Complex
In any performance-based program such as process safety, the work is never finished — there is always room for improvement.
In practice, most of the developments in techniques for improving safety analysis are improvements of existing programs or techniques. For example, the hazards analysis technique LOPA (Layers of Protection Analysis) has seen widespread application in recent years. Yet it is…
Safety Moment #60: Risk Perception
The material in this article to do with risk perception is taken from the book Process Risk and Reliability Management.
Risk perception is fundamentally a subjective matter; no matter how hard analysts strive to make the topic objective the fact remains that, as Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) once said, A truth ceases to be a truth as soon as two people perceive it.
This observation regarding…
Safety Moment #59: In-Kind / Not In-Kind Change
The topic of Management of Change (MOC) is discussed in the following publications:
Safety Moment #5: Management of Change — Defining Change and
Safety Moment #67: The Most Important PSM Elements - Management of Change
In this Safety Moment we look more deeply into the distinction between “In-Kind” and “Not In-Kind” changes.
In principle, this distinction is simple. If the replacement for…
Safety Moment #57: Equipment Spacing (Pumps/Pipe Racks)
Pump seals are a source of leaks in process and energy facilities. Moreover, the discharged liquid will normally be at high pressure, so it can travel a long distance and/or form a spray. Therefore, when laying out a facility it is important to make sure that pumps are located at a safe distance from other equipment and piping. (If the facility is already constructed and in operation it is still…
Safety Moment #56: Sinking Standards / Accountants Rule the Waves
This Safety Moment has been updated. It is now The Process Safety Professional. Part 9: That Sinking Feeling.
Safety Moment #54: The Process Safety Professional
The contents of this Safety Moment have moved to The Process Safety Professional.