New methodologies for security risk assessment of oil and gas industry

The oil and gas industry forms a vital and large part of the economy of any country. It provides crucial support to transport, manufacturing and energy sectors, produces valuable exports and provides huge employment. This industry along with fertilizer plants, petrochemical plants, etc., which handle hazardous chemicals, are potential targets for deliberate actions by terrorists, criminals and disgruntled employees. The process industries face different levels of threats. It is imperative to analyze the entire threat scenario before taking steps to counter it, otherwise each and every threat will have to be treated as most severe, thus resulting in a huge and wasteful expenditure.The Security Risk Factor Table (SRFT) and a Stepped Matrix Procedure (SMP) have been developed to assess the security risk of oil and gas industry as well as the other chemical process industries. While the SRFT deals with the effects of individual threats, the SMP deals with the cascading/domino effects which a lone, low probability event can cause. A case study of a refinery has been performed to show the application of the ideas presented.     

浅谈海洋石油多功能支持平台的安全管理

简单介绍了海洋石油多功能支持平台的基本情况,总结了多功能支持平台现有的三种安全管理工具,分别是工作许可证、工作安全风险分析(JSA)和"五想五不干"行为安全观察卡;同时结合海洋石油多功能支持平台自身特点,分析了如何做好平台的安全教育培训、安全检查和班组安全建设以及应急演练等安全管理工作;通过增强全员的安全意识、及时消除事故隐患及增强基层的安全管理和加强平台的应急反应能力,提高海洋石油多功能支持平台的安全管理水平,以期达到海洋石油平台安全、健康、和谐发展的目的,可供同行借鉴和参考。     

Site managers and safety leadership in the offshore oil and gas industry

Management commitment to safety is recognised as a fundamental component of an organisation's safety culture (Reason, 1997. Managing the Risks of Organisational Accidents. Ashgate, Aldershot, UK). However, the role and experiences of site managers in relation to safety have rarely been examined. A survey questionnaire was conducted of 200 Offshore Installation Managers (OIMs) from 157 offshore oil and gas installations belonging to 36 organisations operating on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf. The questionnaire gathered data relating to OIMs' level of experience and style of leadership as well as their knowledge and experience of safety and leadership within the industry. The aims of the study are twofold. The first aim is to investigate the relationship between managers' level of experience and style of leadership with their safety attitudes and behaviour. The second aim is to investigate managers' perceptions of best practice in safety leadership and their beliefs about the key outstanding safety issues. Findings suggest that experience is not the dominant factor in determining leadership style or attitudes to safety, however, the less experienced OIMs and those with more directive styles of leadership were found to overestimate their ability to influence and motivate the workforce. It seems that although managers are aware of best practice in safety leadership, they do not always act in ways consistent with this. They report having considerable difficulty in motivating and controlling some safety crucial aspects of workforce behaviour such as getting workers to accept ownership of safety and getting workers to report near misses. In terms of outstanding safety issues, it appears that improvements still need to be made in a number of areas such as the standardisation of safety culture; the harmonisation of safety practices and procedures across the industry; improved workforce competency and increased workforce involvement in safety activities and decision making.     

Investigating new risk reduction and mitigation in the oil and gas industry

The complexity of the processes and the nature of volatile petroleum products urged the oil and gas industry to utilize various risk assessment techniques to identify potential failure modes that can interrupt operation processes. Consequently, government agencies and nonprofit professional societies guide the industry with regulatory guidelines, standards, and best recommended practices to oversee the operations management, assure safe working environment, and contain failures within tolerable limits. Yet, accidents due to electro-mechanical failures still occur and result in various consequences. Accordingly, critics have raised concerns about the petroleum industry's safety and risk mitigation credentials and question its ability to prevent future major accidents. Therefore, new risk assessment tools need to be introduced to provide decision makers and novice engineers with a diverse perception of potential risks. The aim of this paper is verify the application of Risk in Early Design (RED), a product risk assessment tool, in identifying potential failures in the oil and gas industry. Approximately thirty major accident underwent the RED analysis to verify the software's application to identify and rank potential failure modes.     

Assessment model for equipment risk management: Petrochemical industry cases

This study presents an assessment model that examines quantity and quality factors for equipment risk management in the petrochemical industry. The proposed model has five dimensions—financial performance, logistical support, service level, learning and innovation, and risk control. This evaluation model uses 13 strategy subjects and 78 performance-measurement indicators. Performance assessment indicators are initially established and revised based on expert opinions collected via a questionnaire. Further, the analytical network process (ANP) is utilized to calculate the weights of indicators in each layer and to construct assessment models with applicable and valuable references. To determine model practicability, this study assesses four subsidiaries of the case company. Each subsidiary has a capitalization exceeding TWD 50 billion. In addition to evaluating company performance in terms of each dimension and indicator, the proposed model provides a valuable reference for decision-making in equipment risk management.     

Toward an integrative approach of the industrial risk management process in France

Management in the field of environmental protection and risk prevention has evolved to the increasing participation of all stakeholders in the decision-making process. It certainly results from the development of the Information society and the global increase of knowledge of the population, combined with the concerns of the populations related to a sustainable development of our civilisation. Our ‘risk society’, following the big industrial disasters (Flixborough,Tchernobyl, Bhopal, Challenger, and more recently Toulouse), has also developed a cautious attitude towards the role of the expertise when it comes to assessing risks, along with a question of the ability of science to give definite answers.

This has lead in particular to the adoption of the Aarhus convention in 1998 and the evolution of several regulations in the developed countries. For example, in France the new law no. 2003–699 of 30 July 2003 about the ‘prevention of the technological and natural risks and to the compensation for the damages’ has introduced an important innovation into the process of technological risks prevention.

This law has enabled the involvement of the stakeholders in the decision-making process related to risk prevention and has urged the development of specific tools to deal with the complexity of risk management issues, in particular for those related to land-use planning.

As technical support to decision-makers in risk management from both public and private sectors, INERIS has played an important role for the evolution of the French risk management system.

This paper describes an analysis on the difficulty to control major accident hazards in an evolving context where the industrial systems becomes more and more complex and where the expectations of the civil society has increased. Then, the authors describe how an integrated vision for industrial risk management has emerged in France and is being implemented in a new law adopted after the Toulouse disaster.     

信息化在海外油气项目HSE管理中的应用

伴随着中国石油企业走出去的步伐不断加快,海外油气项目的规模迅速扩大,相较于国内而言,海外油气项目面临的环境更加复杂,HSE管理难度更大。探索一种科学、高效并且符合现代化管理要求的先进管理手段,与企业的HSE管理有机融合,从而确保企业HSE管理体系良好运行,对于企业具有重要意义。中国某石油企业海外项目（A公司）在此方面进行了大量、有益的实践,其将自身的信息管理系统与HSE体系有机融合,从而实现了HSE管理的信息化。选取A公司的事故预防应急系统作重点介绍,将A公司的事故预防管理与传统事故预防管理进行对比,同时将A公司的应急管理与传统应急管理进行对比,最后提出了针对HSE管理信息化的思考,以期对石油企业海外项目的HSE管理提供帮助。     

海上石油平台工艺区风环境模拟及韧性评估*

为研究不同风向下海上石油平台工艺区的风场特征和系统韧性,采用Fluent软件从8种不同风向角度对海上平台工艺区风环境进行三维数值模拟,分析研究高于工艺区地面1.5,3,4.5 m水平风场风速分布特征,确定微静风区和强风速区面积,并以微静风区域占比为指标评估系统抗灾韧性。研究结果表明:风速激增区出现在障碍物前缘或侧翼;风口顺延形成强风道,风速介于1.6～3.1 m/s之间;系统韧性与微静风区占比呈现负相关,在1.5 m高度风场处,E-90°风向时微静风区域面积占比约为69%,工艺系统韧性较弱,风险较大;NW-315°风向时微静风区域面积占比约为9.6%,工艺系统韧性较强,风险较小;随着风场高度增大,各个风向系统韧性均有所提高,W-270°风向时系统韧性升幅达12.1%,N-0°风向时系统韧性升幅达12.24%。研究结果可为海上石油平台逃生路线设计、火气监控设备布置及提高平台自身抗灾韧性方面提供指导依据。     

Fuzzy risk assessment of oil and gas offshore wells

Risk evaluation of offshore wells is a challenging task, given that much of the available data is highly uncertain and vague, and many of the mechanisms are complex and difficult to understand. Consequently, a systematic approach is required to handle both quantitative and qualitative data as well as means to update existing information when new knowledge and data become available. Each Basic Risk Item (BRI) in a hierarchical framework is expressed as a fuzzy number, which is a combination of the likelihood of a failure event and the associated failure consequence. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to estimate weights required for grouping non-commensurate risk sources. Evidential Reasoning (ER) is employed to incorporate new data for updating existing risk estimates. It is envisaged that the proposed approach could serve as a basis for benchmarking acceptable risks in offshore wells.     

加拿大油气管道安全管理体系及其启示

建立系统完善的安全管理体系是保障油气管道安全运行的基础。通过分析加拿大立法特点,梳理国家层面和地方层面管道安全监管机构设置与职责,研究管道安全法规体系,明确了加拿大油气管道安全监管体制和全生命周期安全管理体系。研究了管道企业安全管理体系和管道全生命周期各个阶段的关键工作,分析了行业协会在管道安全管理方面发挥的积极作用,掌握了管道完整性管理方面的经验与成果。在此基础上对中加油气管道安全管理情况进行了对比分析,从重视管道安全监管立法、建立全生命周期安全管理体系、完善油气管道标准规范、实施管道完整性管理、建立统一呼叫系统和管道地图系统、鼓励社会各方共同参与管道保护等方面提出了加强我国油气管道安全管理的建议措施。研究成果对于完善我国油气管道安全管理体系具有指导作用。     

RAM分析技术在海上油气田建设项目中的应用研究

水下生产系统最近几年被广泛用于海洋深水油气田的开发.与传统陆上油气田相比,水下生产系统维护困难,系统故障可能导致更严重后果,能源公司越来越重视水下生产系统的可靠性.总结了可靠性、可用性和可维护性分析技术的基本原理和工作流程,以目前正在建设中的深水油气田开发项目为例,给出了可靠性、可用性和可维护性技术的应用过程,并根据结果优化了基本设计方案,确保了导管架平台与水下生产系统的总体可靠性和可用性,同时从可靠性观点出发,针对设计中的薄弱环节,提出了相应的改进措施,对今后海上油气开发项目的设计的选择和运行维护方案的制定具有一定的指导与借鉴意义.     

Safety climate and mindful safety practices in the oil and gas industry

IntroductionThe existence of a positive association between safety climate and the safety behavior of sharp-end workers in high-risk organizations is supported by a considerable body of research. Previous research has primarily analyzed two components of safety behavior, namely safety compliance and safety participation. The present study extends previous research by looking into the relationship between safety climate and another component of safety behavior, namely mindful safety practices. Mindful safety practices are defined as the ability to be aware of critical factors in the environment and to act appropriately when dangers arise.MethodRegression analysis was used to examine whether mindful safety practices are, like compliance and participation, promoted by a positive safety climate, in a questionnaire-based study of 5712 sharp-end workers in the oil and gas industry.ResultsThe analysis revealed that a positive safety climate promotes mindful safety practices.ConclusionsThe regression model accounted for roughly 31% of the variance in mindful safety practices. The most important safety climate factor was safety leadership.Practical applicationsThe findings clearly demonstrate that mindful safety practices are highly context-dependent, hence, manageable and susceptible to change. In order to improve safety climate in a direction which is favorable for mindful safety practices, the results demonstrate that it is important to give the fundamental features of safety climate high priority and in particular that of safety leadership.     

Learning from the application of nuclear probabilistic safety assessment to the chemical industry

This paper introduces the new approach of risk analysis established by the French Ministry of the Environment and develops the benefits of applying nuclear probabilistic safety assessment approaches to the chemical industry.In the aftermath of the AZF disaster in Toulouse on 21 September 2001, a new law was proposed by the French government asking for the investigation of all representative scenarios and the assessment of the probability of the resulting dangerous phenomena to demonstrate an acceptable level of safety. Therefore, any accident is investigated from a global point of view, according to its gravity and its probability.In 2000, the French Ministry of the Environment asked the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), and in particular its Systems and Risk Protection Assessment (SESPRI) and its Industrial Risks, Fire and Containment Assessment and Study (SERIC) departments, to conduct a Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) study of an LPG distribution facility, specially for the BLEVE scenario. This study has showed the power of PSA for defining and prioritizing actions to be carried out to improve safety of facilities; however, it requires credible data for reliability and failure of the equipment, not available in generic failure databases.Since 2007, IRSN has taken several initiatives in collaboration with operators in order to provide more precise and representative failure rates for main safety equipment, ready to use in future PSA relative to LPG plants.     

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.     

城市油气管道泄漏爆炸重大案例应急管理对比研究

青岛东黄输油管道泄漏爆炸特别重大事故,引起公众对城市油气管道安全的普遍关注。近年来,城市油气管道事故频繁发生,反映出我国在城市地下管道安全管理方面存在较大问题。基于国内外管道相似事故调研,选取墨西哥瓜达拉哈拉管道泄漏爆炸事故和青岛东黄输油管道泄漏爆炸事故进行对比分析。基于事故致因理论,探究事故发展模式,建立事故链模型。结合应急管理思想,从预警预控、应急处置、评估恢复角度分析事故应急管理过程的共性失误。最后,针对应急管理各阶段共性失误提出防范措施,对提高类似事故的应急管理能力具有一定的参考意义     

Emission factor estimation for oil and gas facilities

Fugitive emission rate quantification in an oil and gas facility is an important step of risk management. There are several studies conducted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and American Petroleum Institute (API) proposing methods of estimating emission rates and factors. Four major approaches of estimating these emissions, in the order of their accuracy, are: average emission factor approach, screening ranges emission factor approach, USEPA correlation equation approach, and unit-specific correlation equation approach. The focus of this study is to optimize the USEPA correlation equations to estimate the emission rate of different units in an oil and gas facility. In the developed methodology, the data available from USEPA (1995) is used to develop new sets of equations. A comparison between USEPA correlation equations and the proposed equations is performed to define the optimum sets of equations. It is observed that for pumps, flanges, open-ended lines, and others, the proposed developed equations provide a better estimation of emission rate, whereas for other sources, USEPA equations supply the better estimate of emission rate.     

海上生产设施远程监控和管理系统的建设探讨

针对海洋石油行业面临的海上作业设施如何安全有效监控及管理的问题,从实际的安全生产管理需求出发,结合通信网络链路及传输特点,采用先进的远程监控技术和海洋石油应急管理理念,设计开发了海上生产设施远程监控和管理系统平台,并论述了总体框架、软硬件结构及发展趋势。系统已经作为保障安全生产的重要手段应用于海上作业平台及船舶运输,提高了安全生产管理水平,并取得了很好的效果。     

An extension to Fuzzy Fault Tree Analysis (FFTA) application in petrochemical process industry

Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) is an established technique in risk management associated with identified hazards specific to focused fields. It is a comprehensive, structured and logical analysis method aimed at identifying and assessing hazards of complex systems. To conduct a quantitative FTA, it is essential to have sufficient data. By considering the fact that sufficient data is not always available, the FTA method can be adopted into the problems under fuzzy environment, so called as Fuzzy Fault Tree Analysis (FFTA). This research extends FFTA methodology to petrochemical process industry in which fire, explosion and toxic gas releases are recognized as potential hazards. Specifically, the case study focuses on Deethanizer failure in petrochemical plant operations to demonstrate the proposed methodology. Consequently, the study has provided theoretical and practical values to challenge with operational data shortage in risk assessment.     

海洋石油钻井平台生产性噪声慢性暴露对血清皮质醇水平的影响

采用自身对照试验,利用个体噪声剂量系统检测海洋石油钻井平台作业人员在作业期间生产性噪声个体暴露水平(40 h等效声级),采用酶联免疫吸附试验(ELISA)分别检测噪声暴露作业前后血清皮质醇水平,并分析血清皮质醇水平变化与噪声暴露水平和暴露时间的关系。结果表明:噪声暴露作业后,全部作业人员血清皮质醇水平明显升高(p0.05,α=0.05);不同噪声暴露水平作业人员血清皮质醇水平差别没有统计学意义(p0.05);噪声暴露20 d的作业人员血清皮质醇水平明显高于噪声暴露≤20 d者(p0.05)。血清皮质醇水平变化与噪声暴露水平没有显著关联性,而与噪声暴露时间呈明显的正相关(p0.05)。研究表明,生产性噪声慢性暴露使血清皮质醇水平升高,且暴露时间是主要影响因素。     

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.