Abstract
OCI Nitrogen wants to gain knowledge of (leading) indicators regarding the process safety performance of their ammonia production process. This paper answers the question whether indicators can be derived from the barrier system status to provide information about the development and likelihood of the major accident processes in the ammonia production process.The accident processes are visualized as scenarios in bowties. This research focuses on the status of the preventive barriers on the left-hand side of the bowtie. Both the quality – expressed in reliability/availability and effectiveness – and the activation of the barrier system give an indication of the development of the accident scenarios and the likelihood of the central event. This likelihood is calculated as a loss of risk reduction compared to the original design. The calculation results in an indicator called “preventive barrier indicator”, which should initiate further action. Based on an example, it is demonstrated which actions should be taken and what their urgency is.
Highlights
In 2015, several major process-related incidents occurred at a number of site users of Chemelot, a chemical industrial park in Geleen, The Netherlands (OVV, 2018)
This paper describes the third part of the research: it contains the results concerning indicators, which aim to recognize and stop the development of scenarios at an early stage
The research question associated with this sub-research is: Can indicators be derived – based on the status of the barrier system – that provide information on the development and likelihood of major accident processes in the ammonia production process?
Summary
In 2015, several major process-related incidents occurred at a number of site users of Chemelot, a chemical industrial park in Geleen, The Netherlands (OVV, 2018). OCI Nitrogen, one of Chemelot’s larger site users, has faced several serious process safety incidents, including at its two ammonia plants. OCI Nitrogen management has started its own investigation in measuring and monitoring process safety. The investigation aims to take timely and targeted measures and thereby prevent major process safety incidents in the future. OCI Nitrogen wants to identify which indicators provide information about the major accident scenarios of its ammonia production processes. The other sub-study identified the main static installation parts of the ammonia production process, which are related to me chanical failure mechanisms (Schmitz et al, 2019a; b; 2020). The research question associated with this sub-research is: Can indicators be derived – based on the status of the barrier system – that provide information on the development and likelihood of major accident processes in the ammonia production process?
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