A contrarian view to Process Safety Management

 For those of you who have been around in the chemical industry for a long time, you will recall that prior to the nineties, process safety was managed in most companies by people who had vast experience and knowledge. Today, I see a dangerous trend - we are drowning in complex PSM systems that takes time to understand and given the high attrition rates, accidents continue to happen. I believe for a PSM system to succeed, there can never be a replacement for strong technical competency right up to the top of a company and that PSM systems must be simple, easy to understand and execute. It is not the number of elements you have in your PSM system or the Safety Integrity level that counts but the capacity to comprehend what the system is telling you.....!

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WEST FERTILISER PLANT EXPLOSION UPDATE-5

 A reader has pointed out the following:
'As I understand it, this facility was a storage and retail operation selling directly to farmers. Thus the facility would receive ammonium nitrate in bulk by rail, store it and then sell it to farmers for soil application. I do not believe there was any "manufacturing" of ammonium nitrate on the premises. While the fire may have started in another area of the facility and spread to the ammonium nitrate storage area, these facts are not known at this time. Rather than speculate using incomplete information, lets wait for the fire cause and allow folks to do their job".

I agree with him!
 

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

WEST FERTILISER PLANT EXPLOSION UPDATE 4

A news report  mentions that investigators say that the explosion did not involve the ammonia tanks. Read the report  in this link

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

Fire in refinery during maintenance work

A major refinery in USA experienced a fire during maintenance work in a heat exchanger in a catalytic hydro desulphurisation unit. 12 contract workers were reportedly injured. Read about the incident in this link

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

WEST FERTILIZER PLANT EXPLOSION - UPDATE 3

A news article mentions that the residences and other complexes were built over the years surrounding the fertilizer plant that was started in 1962. While this needs to be investigated, we, In India need to enforce facility siting rules to prevent the unauthorized development around a chemical plant.

Read the article in this link.

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