A conceptual offshore oil and gas process accident model

The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss an accident prevention model for offshore oil and gas processing environments. The accidents that are considered in this work relate specifically to hydrocarbon release scenarios and any escalating events that follow. Using reported industry data, the elements to prevent an accident scenario are identified and placed within a conceptual model to depict the accident progression. The proposed accident model elements are represented as safety barriers designed to prevent the accident scenario from developing. The accident model is intended to be a tool for highlighting vulnerabilities of oil and gas processing operations and to provide guidance on how to minimize their hazards. These vulnerabilities are discussed by applying the 1988 Piper Alpha and the 2005 BP Texas City disaster scenarios to the model.     

Fire and explosion assessment on oil and gas floating production storage offloading (FPSO): An effective screening and comparison tool

Fires and explosions have been identified as major potential hazards for Oil and Gas Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) installations and pose risk to personnel, assets, and the environment. Current fire and explosion assessment (FEA) tools require physical effect modeling software and follows standards from API, ISO, and engineering practices. However, the tools are not specific to any particular system such as an FPSO, and do not provide comprehensive guidance for safety engineers to perform FEA.This paper discusses the development of a screening and comparison tool for FEA on FPSOs and the incorporation of an expert system into the tool. The results are computerized using MS Excel/VBA to provide a structured and comprehensive assessment on each equipment and module handling natural gas, crude oil, methanol and diesel on FPSO topsides.This tool features built-in calculations for jet and pool fire size estimation for gas/liquid releases, and the ability to perform Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA) to specify the personnel and equipment risk for varying leak sizes and process conditions. Control and recovery measures are incorporated as an expert system based on report findings, engineering practices, and relevant standards. Bowtie analysis is applied in the tool to define detailed control and recovery measures for the FPSO based on the incident scenarios. An explosion assessment is performed by incorporating physical effect modeling software results.Unique features provided in the tool include fire and radiation contour mapping on an FPSO layout to help determine personnel and equipment risk more accurately and fire pump sizing that can be used to verify the amount of water deluge system required to mitigate fires and explosions. In addition, flexibility of data input (process data, failure rate data, etc.) and user interfaces assist safety engineers to screen and compare process alternatives, check design quality, and evaluate design options at any design stage.     

Hydrocarbon releases on oil and gas production platforms: Release scenarios and safety barriers

The main objective of this paper is to present and discuss a set of scenarios that may lead to hydrocarbon releases on offshore oil and gas production platforms. Each release scenario is described by an initiating event (i.e., a deviation), the barrier functions introduced to prevent the initiating event from developing into a release, and how the barrier functions are implemented in terms of barrier systems. Both technical and human/operational safety barriers are considered. The initiating events are divided into five main categories: (1) human and operational errors, (2) technical failures, (3) process upsets, (4) external events or loads, and (5) latent failures from design. The release scenarios may be used as basis for analyses of: (a) the performance of safety barriers introduced to prevent hydrocarbon releases on specific platforms, (b) the platform specific hydrocarbon release frequencies in future quantitative risk analyses, (c) the effect on the total hydrocarbon release frequency of the safety barriers and risk reducing measures (or risk increasing changes).     

Shift schedules on North Sea oil/gas installations: A systematic review of their impact on performance,safety and health

Continuous production processes on North Sea installations necessitate extended work schedules; 2-week offshore tours (alternating with shore breaks), 12 h shifts and rapid day/night shift changes are inherent features of offshore work. These intensive rosters, worked in a demanding physical and psychosocial environment, are potential sources of fatigue and impaired performance among offshore personnel. This article focuses on offshore working time arrangements, and presents a systematic review of studies which examine offshore day/night shift patterns in relation to operational safety and individual health risks. Of the 53 studies retrieved, 24 met the review criteria.Field study findings are generally consistent in showing that sleep, alertness and performance are relatively stable across day-shift tours; initial night shifts are adversely affected by circadian disruption, but full physiological and psychological adaptation occurs within 5–6 days; re-adaptation to day shifts is slower, and varies widely across individuals; the offshore environment is conducive to night-shift adaptation, but interventions to facilitate re-adaptation have proved only modestly effective. Analyses of survey data and accident/sickness records identify offshore night work as a risk factor for impaired sleep, health problems, and injuries, but little is known about the long-term health effects of different offshore shift rotations.In conclusion, research methodology and findings, and working time issues of current concern to the offshore oil/gas industry, are discussed. Aspects of offshore work schedules that have been not been widely studied (e.g. overtime, irregular work patterns) are also highlighted, and research areas that would merit further attention are noted.     

Recent application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in process safety and loss prevention: A review

In recent years, significant progress has been made to ensure that process industries are among the safest workplaces in the world. However, with the increasing complexity of existing technologies and new problems brought about by emerging technologies, a strong need still exists to study the fundamentals of process safety and predict possible scenarios. This is attained by conducting the corresponding consequence modeling and risk assessments. As a result of the continuous advancement of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools and exponentially increased computation capabilities along with better understandings of the underlying physics, CFD simulations have been applied widely in the areas of process safety and loss prevention to gain new insights, improve existing models, and assess new hazardous scenarios. In this review, 126 papers from 2010 to 2020 have been included in order to systematically categorize and summarize recent applications of CFD for fires, explosions, dispersions of flammable and toxic materials from accidental releases, incident investigations and reconstructions, and other areas of process safety. The advantages of CFD modeling are discussed and the future of CFD applications in this research area is outlined.     

Fuzzy risk modeling of process operations in the oil and gas refineries

Operating several assets has resulted in more complexity and so occurrence of some major accidents in the refining industries. The process operations risk factors including failure frequency and the consequence components like employees' safety and environment impacts, operation downtime, direct and indirect cost of operations and maintenance, and mean time to repair should be considered in the analysis of these major accidents in any refinery. Considering all of these factors, the risk based maintenance (RBM) as a proper risk assessment methodology minimizes the risk resulting from asset failures. But, one of the main engineering problems in risk modeling of the complex industries like refineries is uncertainty due to the lack of information. This paper proposes a model for the risk of the process operations in the oil and gas refineries. The fuzzy logic system (FLS) was proposed for risk modeling. The merit of using fuzzy model is to overcome the uncertainty of the RBM components. This approach also can be accounted as a benchmark for future failures. A unified risk number would be obtained to show how the criticality of units is. The case study of a gas plant in an oil refinery is performed to illustrate the application of the proposed model and a comparison between the results of both traditional RBM and fuzzy method is made.For the case study, 26 asset failures were identified. The fuzzy risk results show that 3 failures have semi-critical level and other 23 failures are non-critical. In both traditional and fuzzy RBM methods, some condenser failures had the highest risk number and some pumps were prioritized to have the lowest risk level. The unit with unified risk number less than 40 is in the non-critical conditions. Proposed methodology is also applicable to other industries dealing with process operations risks.     

Inherent safety in offshore oil and gas activities: a review of the present status and future directions

Inherent safety is a proactive approach for hazard/risk management during process plant design and operation. It has been proven that, considering the lifetime costs of a process and its operation, an inherently safer approach is a cost-optimal option. Inherent safety can be incorporated at any stage of design and operation; however, its application at the earliest possible stages of process design (such as process selection and conceptual design) yields the best results.Although it is an attractive and cost-effective approach to hazard/risk management, inherent safety has not been used as widely as other techniques such as HAZOP and quantitative risk assessment. There are many reasons responsible for this; key among them are a lack of awareness and the non-availability of a systematic methodology and tools.The inherent safety approach is the best option for hazard/risk management in offshore oil and gas activities. In the past, it has been applied to several aspects of offshore process design and operation. However, its use is still limited. This article attempts to present a complete picture of inherent safety application in offshore oil and gas activities. It discuses the use of available technology for implementation of inherent safety principles in various offshore activities, both current and planned for the future.     

沁海煤矿瓦斯重大灾害及生产动态安全状况诊断

按照《煤矿安全规程》2010版制成安全检查表,运用安全检查表法和系统分析的方法对煤矿的主要系统存在的隐患进行逐项诊断,主要诊断矿井的瓦斯抽放系统、矿井的通风系统、矿井的防尘系统、矿井的防灭火系统以及矿井运输提升系统等。诊断主要是针对瓦斯重大灾害及矿井生产过程中违章违规现象以及矿井自然属性带来的系统固有隐患,对矿井中员工的操作规范情况也进行检查,并对存在的隐患和员工的错误操作提出相应的整改措施,促使煤矿及时对矿井存在的系统固有隐患和人为隐患进行整改,以消除在生产动态过程中查出的隐患,从而预防煤矿事故的发生。消灭了事故隐患,实际上也是把事故消灭在萌芽状态之中,达到防患于未然,提高我国煤矿安全生产水平。     

Utilisation of chromic waste in the sodium chromate (VI) production process

This work presents research results on the utilisation of chromic waste in the production of sodium chromate (VI). The optimal parameters of the sodium chromate (VI) process which make it possible to select the best technological solution were determined. This allowed the values useful for a practical estimation of the process, such as mass balances, technological figures and especially the quantity of the produced chromic waste, to be determined. Research on the on-site recycling of the chromic waste from old chromic heaps resulted in working out of the dry enrichment method of the waste stream which was returned to the sodium chromate process. Satisfactory enrichment resulted in the separation of the fraction 63–200 μm, where the enrichment rate was 1.27 at a separation degree of 0.32.     

天然气制甲醇关键过程火灾爆炸危险性分析

介绍了甲醇生产过程中的火灾、爆炸危险性及其研究现状,对天然气制甲醇生产工艺过程作了简单分析.运用DOW化学火灾爆炸危险指数法对各生产工艺单元的火灾爆炸危险性进行评价,确定天然气转化和热回收工艺单元与甲醇合成工艺单元为主要的危险工艺单元.进而根据甲醇生产工艺的火灾爆炸危险类型,通过事故树法对天然气制甲醇生产工艺中需要进行重点控制的工艺单元进行系统安全分析,确定了两个工艺单元内火灾爆炸事故发生的途径及其难易程度.     

浅谈油气田生产企业职业病危害防治体系的建立

采油采气过程中普遍存在噪声、毒物等职业病危害因素,对员工的健康安全具有很大的危害,也是造成职业病的根源。本文详细阐述了石油上游企业存在的职业病危害现状,分析了建立职业健康监管体系的方法,并对职业病防治措施进行了研究。     

An integrated framework of safety performance evaluation for oil and gas production plants: Application to a petroleum transportation station

Safety performance evaluation is a significant way to ensure the safety of oil and gas production plants. Various evaluation methods have been proposed to make safety evaluation more consistent and scientific. However, a major concern is that many existing safety evaluation measurements are still subjective and are not easy to obtain in a uniform way, which can be attributed to the challenges that process plants faced such as people having different knowledge levels, equipment with dispersed locations and management with many processes. This paper aims to display the impact of risk factors on system safety level in a succinct and visual way that may be expected to overcome subjective opinions from experts and provide a more pertinent and practical safety strategies. To this end, an integrated framework is developed, which considers crucial risk factors from pipeline, static equipment, dynamic equipment and management. First, Fault tree analysis (FTA) is used to explicitly determine the crucial r risk factors. Then, a novel fuzzy cognitive map cooperating with relative degree analysis model (FCM-RDA) is proposed to deal with the weigh distribution opinions. Finally, considering the oil and gas production process is a complex system, a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) is employed to calculate the overall safety level.     

Building urban gas process safety management (UG-PSM) system: Based on root cause analysis with 160 urban gas accidents in China

Urban safety is significantly impacted by the complexity of urban gas accidents. Although China has put forward the goal of “zero fatalities in accidents” for urban gas, unfortunately, the root causes of the unsound safety culture and imperfect safety management system of urban gas enterprises remain unresolved. Therefore, statistical analysis and 24Model analysis of 160 urban gas accidents in mainland China were performed to investigate the proximate causes of the accidents and the current situation of urban gas safety. The CCPS's risk-based process safety elements were used to identify potential deficiencies in the current urban gas process safety management (UG-PSM). During the analysis, it was observed that insufficient implementation of concealed danger investigation and rectification accounted for 76%, which is the primary proximate cause of urban gas accidents. Stakeholder outreach is the most under-represented competency in urban gas safety management. Based on the results, a novel framework for the UG-PSM system was constructed, and the theory of urban gas safety management was further improved. Furthermore, we evaluated the matching degree between UG-PSM elements and the existing measures of the government, urban gas associations, third-party organizations, and urban gas enterprises. Finally, we analyzed the feasibility, challenges, and development directions of the UG-PSM system. This study establishes a foundation for researchers and practitioners in the future research and practice of urban gas process safety and provides theoretical guidance for preventing high-incidence accidents of urban gas in China.     

A rough set-based game theoretical approach for environmental decision-making: A case of offshore oil and gas operations

Environmental decision-making in offshore oil and gas (OOG) operations can be extremely complex due to conflicting objectives or criteria, availability of vague and uncertain information, and interdependency among multiple decision-makers. Most existing studies ignore conflicting preferences and strategic interactions among decision-makers. This paper presents a game theoretical approach to solve multi-criteria conflict resolution problem under constrained and uncertain environments. Uncertainties in the quantification of imprecise data are expressed using rough numbers. A multi-criteria game is developed to model a decision problem in which three groups of decision-makers (i.e., operators, regulators and service engineers) are involved. This game is solved using the generalized maximin solution concept. With the solution (i.e., optimal weights of the criteria), the rough numbers can be aggregated to an expected payoff for each alternative. Finally, the weights of upper and lower limits of a rough number are employed to transform the expected payoff into a crisp score, based on which all alternatives are ranked to identify the best one. A numerical example is outlined to demonstrate the application of the proposed method to the selection of management scenarios of drilling wastes.     

Safety compliance and safety climate: A repeated cross-sectional study in the oil and gas industry

IntroductionViolations of safety rules and procedures are commonly identified as a causal factor in accidents in the oil and gas industry. Extensive knowledge on effective management practices related to improved compliance with safety procedures is therefore needed. Previous studies of the causal relationship between safety climate and safety compliance demonstrate that the propensity to act in accordance with prevailing rules and procedures is influenced to a large degree by workers' safety climate. Commonly, the climate measures employed differ from one study to another and identical measures of safety climate are seldom tested repeatedly over extended periods of time. This research gap is addressed in the present study.MethodThe study is based on a survey conducted four times among sharp-end workers of the Norwegian oil and gas industry (N = 31,350). This is done by performing multiple tests (regression analysis) over a period of 7 years of the causal relationship between safety climate and safety compliance. The safety climate measure employed is identical across the 7-year period.ConclusionsTaking all periods together, the employed safety climate model explained roughly 27% of the variance in safety compliance. The causal relationship was found to be stable across the period, thereby increasing the reliability and the predictive validity of the factor structure. The safety climate factor that had the most powerful effect on safety compliance was work pressure.Practical applicationsThe factor structure employed shows high predictive validity and should therefore be relevant to organizations seeking to improve safety in the petroleum sector. The findings should also be relevant to other high-hazard industries where safety rules and procedures constitute a central part of the approach to managing safety.     

Mapping process safety: A retrospective scientometric analysis of three process safety related journals (1999–2018)

Over the last decades, process safety has been an important area of academic inquiry, aiming to build knowledge which can contribute to reduce the occurrence of industrial accidents in the process and chemical industries, or to mitigate their consequences. Knowledge in this interdisciplinary research domain is created using applied science, engineering, organizational, and social science approaches. This article provides a retrospective overview of the process safety research field, through the lens of three major journals contributing to the development of this knowledge domain: Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, Process Safety and Environmental Protection, and Process Safety Progress. An analysis of the articles in these journals, published between 1999 and 2018, provides insights in the structure, developments, trends, and highly influential works in this research domain, while revealing differences and similarities between these three core process safety journals. General publication trends, the geographic distribution of leading knowledge producers (countries/regions and institutions), their collaboration and temporal evolution patterns, topic clusters and emerging trends, and highly cited sources and articles, are identified and discussed.     

Study on the deflagration reaction process of oil gas in long-narrow confined space based on PLIF and flame spectra

Oil gas explosion in long-narrow confined space is a typical unsteady combustion process. To study the reaction process, two experiment techniques are adopted in this research. One is planner laser induced fluorescence, which is used to achieve the transient measurement of free radicals in unsteady premixed combustion field. The other one is the spectral testing technique, which is used to measure the luminescence spectrum characteristics of oil gas combustion flame. The distribution of OH radical and CH radical at different positions in the combustion field, the common partition of deflagration flame structure under different oil gas concentrations, and the main luminescence spectra of radicals such as OH, CH, C₂, C₃, CO₂, H₂O and HCO are obtained. By comparing the above three aspects, the combustion reaction process of premixed mixture is revealed, driven by the coupling effect of chemical reaction and fluid flow in the process of explosion propagation. The process can be described briefly as follows. In the “outer flame zone”, large hydrocarbon molecules are mainly transformed to small molecules and free radicals by means of pyrolysis, dehydrogenation and oxidation. In the “inner flame zone”, carbon particles and combustion products produced and gathered after relevant reactions.     

A comparative analysis of process safety management (PSM) systems in the process industry

The root cause of most accidents in the process industry has been attributed to process safety issues ranging from poor safety culture, lack of communication, asset integrity issues, lack of management leadership and human factors. These accidents could have been prevented with adequate implementation of a robust process safety management (PSM) system. Therefore, the aim of this research is to develop a comparative framework which could aid in selecting an appropriate and suitable PSM system for specific industry sectors within the process industry. A total of 21 PSM systems are selected for this study and their theoretical frameworks, industry of application and deficiencies are explored. Next, a comparative framework is developed using eleven key factors that are applicable to the process industry such as framework and room for continuous improvement, design specification, industry adaptability and applicability, human factors, scope of application, usability in complex systems, safety culture, primary or secondary mode of application, regulatory enforcement, competency level, as well as inductive or deductive approach. After conducting the comparative analysis using these factors, the Integrated Process Safety Management System (IPSMS) model seems to be the most robust PSM system as it addressed almost every key area regarding process safety. However, inferences drawn from study findings suggest that there is still no one-size-fits-all PSM system for all sectors of the process industry.     

The oil and gas industry,the competence assessment of Offshore Installation Managers (OIMs) and Control Room Operators (CROs) in emergency response,and the lack of effective assessment of underpinning technical knowledge and understanding

Within the UKCS offshore oil and gas industry there exist key personnel who perform critical roles in an emergency as part of the installation's emergency response team (ERT), two of these personnel are the Offshore Installation Manager (OIM) and the offshore Control Room Operator (CRO). The OIM is responsible for the safety and well-being of all persons onboard and within 500 m of the installation. Should an emergency situation arise, the OIM performs one of the most critical roles in emergency response - management of the response to the emergency to mitigate and make safe the installation to secure a place of safety for persons onboard or organise their safe evacuation. Such emergency response shall also include limiting the loss of hydrocarbons to the environment. The CRO monitors and interprets the output from an installation's Distributed Control System (DCS) and Fire and Gas Panel (FGP), responding to alarms and deviations from steady state. In many instances, an offshore CRO's actions in response to these deviations can determine whether or not the situation deteriorates into a disaster. Should an emergency occur, the CRO will act in accordance with an installation's emergency response procedures and OIM instructions.The persistence of incidents, a number leading to disasters, in the industry highlights the importance of both OIM and CRO competence in controlling emergencies. Both positions require an effective system to assess the competence of job holders. Research at the University of Aberdeen identified potential barriers that can prevent the effective competence assessment of an OIM in emergency response. An extension to this research analyses the two offshore industry standards for competence in emergency response: OPITO 7025 – OIM Controlling Emergencies and OPITO 9004 – Control Room Operator Emergency Response, and associated documentation, applying a critical hermeneutic approach, focusing on the assessment of underpinning knowledge and understanding within the roles. The key findings are that there currently exists no effective means to assess the underpinning technical knowledge and understanding of either OIMs or CROs in emergency response within the offshore industry. Knowledge and, in particular, understanding are poorly defined within the relevant OPITO standards. There exists no validation of evidence collated to support an individual's underpinning knowledge and understanding and no truly independent audit of collated evidence or the process of assessment.The research is important to Duty Holders (see also OSD Installation Operators under UK Offshore Safety Directive Regulations) and employers within the offshore oil and gas industry, organisations associated with the offshore industry, safety engineers and UK Government departments with regard to the effectiveness of competence assessment of appointed OIMs and CROs. It is also significant to risk engineers when considering the probable competence of key emergency response personnel in a given environment at a given point in time. The research is not just applicable to the UKCS offshore industry but also to the global offshore oil and gas industry.     

Determining a realistic ranking of the most dangerous process equipment of the ammonia production process: A practical approach

OCI Nitrogen seeks to gain knowledge of (leading) indicators regarding the process safety performance of their ammonia production process. The current research determines the most dangerous process equipment by calculating their effects resulting from a loss of containment using DNV GL's Phast™ dispersion model. In this paper, flammable and toxic effects from a release from the main equipment of an ammonia plant have been calculated. Such an encompassing approach, which can be carried out for an entire plant, is innovative and has never been conducted before. By using this model, it has been demonstrated that the effects arising from an event of failure are the largest in process equipment containing pressurized synthesis gas and ‘warm’ liquid ammonia, meaning the ammonia buffer tanks, ammonia product pumps, and the ammonia separator. Most importantly, this document substantiates that it is possible to rank the most hazardous process equipment of the ammonia production process based on an adverse impact on humans using the calculated effect distance as a starting point for a chance of death of at least 95%. The results from the effect calculations can be used for risk mapping of an entire chemical plant or be employed and applied in a layer of protection analysis (LOPA) to establish risk mitigation measures.