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!
 

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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

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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

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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.

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WEST FERTILIZER PLANT EXPLOSION UPDATE 3

While not jumping to conclusion about the reason for the explosion, the photos before and after the explosion indicate that ammonium nitrate that was stored exploded after an initial fire in some other section of the plant, that spread to the area where ammonium nitrate was stored.
Compare the photos of the plant before the explosion (Courtesy: Google Earth) and after the explosion, courtesy AP:
Before the explosion:

After the explosion:

From the photos, it appears that the fire first started in the manufacturing area for ammonium nitrate ( read this link from Wikipedia about the process) and then spread to the storage area of ammonium nitrate.

There are a number of pictures in this link of the plant after the explosion and looks like the bullets and ammonia trailers were spared the wrath of the explosion.


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WEST FERTILIZER PLANT EXPLOSION UPDATE 2

The NY daily news has reported that "the fertilizer plant that exploded had 1350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would have raised red flags.The factory in West, Texas, did not report its massive amount of the potentially explosive fertilizer to the Department of Homeland Security, a source familiar with DHS operations said. At least 14 people died and more than 200 were injured following the blast on Wednesday".

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/texas-fertilizer-plant-massive-amounts-unreported-ammonium-nitrate-article-1.1322766#ixzz2R3p4bwab

Read another associated article in this link. 

By the way, the ammonia synthesis industry has completed 100 years of operations. Read an interesting update on this event by BASF in this link. 

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INFORMATIVE LINK ON WEST FERTILIZER PLANT EXPLOSION

Worth a read:
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/18/the-texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-is-horrific-but-how-common-is-this/

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

UPDATE ON TEXAS FERTILISER PLANT EXPLOSION

News reports indicate that the Fertilizer plant that exploded held an estimated 54,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia to produce ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer.


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

HUGE EXPLOSION IN TEXAS FERTILISER PLANT

Thanks to Abhay Gujjar and Ravi Varma for sending details of a huge explosion in a fertilizer plant in Texas. Reportedly there have been many casualties.  Read the news report and graphic video of the explosion in this link.

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

Fukushima - status

Thanks to Sanjeevi for sending this article on the status of the Fukushima disaster clean up. It is scary! Read it in this link.

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

Regulatory oversight of PSM

There may be regulations and regulations but regulatory oversight (checking of implementation by legal authorities involved) need to be strong to enforce the regulations - this is one of the lessons learnt from the refinery fire in California. In India, too there are many good regulations but the problem comes when enough manpower and competency is not available with the regulatory authorities.
Read the article on the lessons learnt from a regulatory point of view from the refinery incident in California in this link.        http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_22966315/federal-officials-say-regulatory-system-needs-overhaul-wake


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