CAST UYGULAMASI: CAPECO ÇOKLU TANK PATLAMASI ÖRNEK ÇALIŞMA

Abstract

Although major industrial accidents caused by hazardous chemicals such as petroleum products are rare in the chemical and petroleum processing industries, they cause significant financial losses, deaths and serious environmental impacts. Even though traditional accident investigation methods work well for linear systems, an accident analysis method built on systems theory helps to analyze major industrial accidents. This study analyzes the Caribbean petroleum tank terminal explosion using Causal Analysis based on Systems Theory (CAST) method. The main purpose of this research is to examine the causes of the accident with a risk assessment based on systems theory apart from traditional methods. The Caribbean petroleum tank terminal explosion was chosen for the study because it was one of the largest tank accidents in the last 50 years. In order to prevent future accidents, it is of great importance to analyze past accidents by analyzing them with new methods. For this purpose, various data and documents related to CAPECO accidents were examined in detail within the framework of CAST methodology. The CAST analysis revealed direct and indirect causal factors related to the CAPECO accident. The lack of management standardization and operational systems were the leading direct causes for the accident. Other main reasons were identified as the absence of an independent automatic overfill prevention system, a lack of considerations on the worst-case scenario, unreliable critical equipment, and inability to detect a large overflowing vapor cloud spreading into the terminal area. The study indicates that CAST methodology can reveal many causal factors at different hierarchical levels of a system.