Not learning from process safety incidents

An article in the Houston Chronicle mentions that "After the lethal explosion at BP's Texas City refinery that killed 15 workers in 2005, the oil industry boosted safety at industrial operations on land but never made the same improvements offshore, according to federal investigators meeting in Houston this week.
The Chemical Safety Board is set to conclude that the offshore drilling sector's focus on monitoring individual worker injuries - while ignoring bigger warning signs of "process safety" problems that could lead to emergencies - set the stage for the Deepwater Horizon disaster."
Read the article in this link. 
I have seen this phenomenon occurring in large chemical manufacturing groups. The lessons from a process safety incident in one unit in a large group was not learnt in another unit of the group. I was heartened to read an article in the newspaper today where a large pharma manufacturer is planning to appoint a technical head to streamline operations to a consistent level. The article mentions that "Underlining the importance of technical expertise, Mr Shanghvi said, historically, for example, senior people with a marketing background handled businesses and also manufacturing. But they would have limited technical expertise, and so the company is looking to separate the two and create a separate set of systems for manufacturing, he said".
I wish all chemical manufacturing companies give the same importance to technical competence as process safety does require a lot of technical competence to understand and follow. Read the article in this link. 
 
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Safety valves and vibration

A news article mentions that there is a dispute between BP and OSHA over spring loaded safety valves. the article mentions that "OSHA is concerned because improperly set valves can result in too much shaking, said Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of labor for OSHA. That vibration could cause the valves -which regulate the opening and closing of pressure vessels - to break.BP believes the valves "comply with industry standards and do not constitute a safety hazard," said spokesman"
The article also mentions that the total cost of the 2005 BP Texas city refinery explosion is 3.5 billion dollars.
Read the article in this link.

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Another manlift accident

After replacing a cone roof on a tank, the contractor crew was removing unwanted material from the work site using a manlift. The incident report mentions that "One item to be moved was a steel box full of metal parts, weighing a total of approximately 900 pounds. Rather than split the load into smaller lots, the Tank Service Supervisor decided to remove the loaded box from the roof using the manlift, so the box was rigged to the underside of the operator’s basket on the lift.
As he began moving the boom over, the manlift suddenly tipped over because the combined weight of the contractor and equipment in the lift basket greatly exceeded the machine’s posted capacity limits. The box hit the ground first. The basket the Tank Services Supervisor was in immediately landed on the box; the force of impact loosened the slings, detaching the box from the basket. With the weight of the box off the basket, the counterweight righted the lift, causing the basket to quickly rebound to about 15’ above grade.
The sudden, forceful, upward movement of the boom catapulted the Tank Services Supervisor out of the basket to the ground. He was wearing a harness and lanyard at the time, but had failed to “tie off” to the anchor point in the basket before he moved the lift. He was hospitalized and is recovering"
Read the incident report in this link.


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Process Safety and Road Safety

Everyday, a large number of tankers carrying hazardous chemicals traverse across India's roads. Chemical manufacturers and suppliers do take all required precautions during the transportation. GPS systems are used for tracking vehicles from a central control room. But the safety sense of other road users need to improve a lot. An article in Livemint mentions the abysmal  state of road safety in India. The article mentions that "The number of deaths (in road accidents) is equal to three jets crashing every day (410 human beings), but since aircraft aren’t involved, they don’t make headlines. Annually about 150,000 people die every year due to road accidents, and about 400,000 people get maimed, the cost of which is about Rs. 1 trillion".

Read the article in this link.
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Thermal imaging to detect gas leaks

A thermal imaging camera manufacturer reports that process operators at a high-pressure, low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plant in Stenungsund, Sweden are using a optical gas imaging camera to detect potentially dangerous gas leaks. The article mentions the following:
"In the LDPE production process - ethylene, a highly flammable hydrocarbon, is converted into polyethylene in a high-pressure polymerisation reaction.
Before the purchase of a FLIR GF306 optical gas imaging camera - Borealis used gas 'sniffers' - devices which measure the concentration of a certain gas in one single location and generate a concentration reading in parts per million (ppm). An operator of the FLIR GF306 stated "The main advantage of the optical gas imaging camera is that it provides you with the possibility to detect gases in real-time visually. Whereas sniffers just give you a number, an optical gas imaging camera allows you to detect gas leakage anywhere within the field of view of the camera."
Now that Borealis have a FLIR GF306 optical gas imaging camera they are able to do a quick scan at every start-up. With a quick scan - process operators are able to scan approximately 80% of the entire plant in about thirty minutes. To do the same task with gas sniffers would need a team of ten people working for two full days".

Read the article in this link
PS: I am not endorsing the product. This is for information only.


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