Survey on Process Safety leadership

Dear Readers,
Request you to participate in a survey I have created for process safety leadership. There are seven multiple choice questions and would take very less time to fill it. Your responses will be anonymous.
Survey results will be published on the blog. Survey closing date is 6.6.13. Thank you!

Take the survey in this link. 



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Fire in HPCL refinery

A fire that lasted about 6 hours has been reported in a refinery at Visakhapatnam. No casulaties were reported. Read about the incident by Indian Express in these links

Major fire at HPCL Visakha refinery

Fire: Emergency systems saved HPCL


Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"

Do Your Thermowells Meet the ASME Standard?

Worth a read!

Do Your Thermowells Meet the ASME Standard?

Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"

Process Safety for fresh engineers

I often get fresh engineers sending me e-mails about a career in process safety. I tell them that they must have a minimum of 10 years in operational experience to really think about a career in process safety. Process Safety cannot be learnt only from textbooks - it needs a deeper understanding on how organisations work and the human issues involving process safety. ASME has brought out a video about process safety for fresh engineers in this link.

Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"

Wireless and explosion proof instruments

 Read a good article on wireless instruments and how they can be made explosion proof or intrinsically safe in this link.
PS: The article is for information only and I am not recommending any product.
 
Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"

Flash fire in plastics unit in USA

On May 2nd, a flash fire occurred at a major plastics producer in the USA.This site had experienced a major fire in 2005 which the CSB had investigated. In the current fire it was reported that few workers were burned.
See a video and news article in this link

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Behaviour Based Safety - Take it with a pinch of salt!

I am always of the view that if behavior based safety has to succeed, the behavior of top management should be corrected first. For example, in an organization if top management keep saying safety is important and do not support their actions with visible and cost committed actions, nothing will change. The Indian culture follows the rule "the boss is always right". So in most Indian organisations, it is something short of blasphemy to observe and report top managements behaviour!
When I was working as a Plant manager 25 years ago, the bosses right up to the top were always displaying the correct behaviour mainly because they were technocrats and had command over the other non technocrats in the organization. The United Steel Workers union in USA has a take on behavior based safety which is worth reading from this link. (large file...be patient).

 Do you have a BBS program going on in your facility? I would like to seek feedback from you about your experience.

 Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"

Welder killed in sulphuric acid tank accident

News reports indicate a welder was killed yesterday at a Chemical manufacturing plant in South India when the lid of a sulphuric acid tank burst "when he was trying to open it". Further details are not known.
Time and again we are seeing repeats of sulphuric acid tank explosions. Train your operators about the hazards of sulphuric acid tanks and hydrogen generation in the tanks due to corrosion of carbon steel.

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Chemical freight Train accident in Belgium

A news article mentions a freight train accident in Belgium. The train was reportedly carrying acrylonitrile. One person reported dead and 49 injured. Read the article in this link.

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Another reason to ban mobiles in chemical plants

In 2011, a medical evacuation helicopter crashed in the USA killing all four occupants including a patient. The NTSB has concluded that constant texting by the pilot on his mobile was a contributing cause of the accident. He ran out of fuel. A news article mentions that "It was the first fatal commercial aircraft accident investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board in which texting has been implicated. And it underscored the board's worries that distractions from electronic devices are a growing factor in incidents across all modes of transportation — planes, trains, cars, trucks and even ships."
Now this is another reason to ban mobiles in chemical plants!

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/10/pilot-texting-contributed-to-copter-crash-ntsb-says/#ixzz2RONCSQmc

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Ammonia tanker accident

An ammonia tanker incident on the Pune Solapur road that killed two persons has been reported in the newspapers. Apparently the driver dozed off.
In India as well as around the world, there are a large number of accidents involving ammonia being used in refrigeration systems in dairies etc. All the ammonia manufacturers must get together to adopt a drive to educate end users about the hazards of ammonia and its safe handling and transportation

Read about the road tanker accident in this link.


Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"