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.

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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.


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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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