Major Hazard Facilities Research Articles

Major hazard risk assessment for existing and new facilities

AbstractThis paper outlines a risk assessment methodology that has been developed through work with major hazard facilities, including ammonia plants in Australia, satisfying regulations equivalent to the European Seveso II Directive. The methodology is an approach for ensuring an undertaking of effectively assessing the risks associated with major hazards that will not only satisfy regulations and corporate requirements, but also, more importantly, provide a framework for sustainable business processes, by enabling the methodology to be integrated into normal business management processes. The approach enables existing management systems to be effectively incorporated into the evaluation processes. Common pitfalls encountered during the risk assessment process are also discussed. © 2004 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2004

EFFECTIVE SAFETY CASE DEVELOPMENT

Esso Australia Pty Ltd, in Victoria, Australia has recently been involved in the preparation of over 20 safety cases to meet both offshore (Victoria and Western Australia) [Petroleum {Submerged Lands} Act] and onshore [Victorian Occupational Health and Safety Act] regulatory requirements.This paper focusses on the development of the onshore safety cases for both Longford and Long Island Point plants to meet the Victorian Occupational Health and Safety (Major Hazard Facilities) Regulations 2000. Both plants have been granted a five-year unconditional licence to operate.The objectives of the safety case development were to ensure that Esso:addressed major hazard facilities regulatory requirements; maximised benefit from the process, and to maximise benefit from existing work; was consistent with site approach to risk assessment/ safety culture; involved appropriate workforce from all areas— operations, maintenance and technical support; enhanced the effective knowledge and understanding of the workforce; and developed a communication tool to enable ease of understanding by site personnel.Esso’s approach of using qualitative risk assessment techniques (familiar to many site personnel) enabled the process to use tools that provided ease of involvement for the non-technical or safety specialists. This paper will explain this approach in greater detail, demonstrating how this successfully met the stringent requirements of the regulations whilst providing Hazard Register documentation readily understood by the key customer— our site workforce.The hazard register clearly identifies the relevant hazards and their controls, as well as highlighting the linkages to the safety management system and documented performance standards. A comprehensive training program provides all personnel working at site with an overview of the safety case, and the necessary skills and knowledge to be able to use the safety case and hazard register to its maximum advantage. The safety case resource booklet (similar to our offshore approach) is an integral part of the training program, and provides an ongoing reference source for trainees. It continues to receive recognition by both regulators and industry.

Medical Awareness and Response to Incidents at Major Hazard Facilities

Medical Awareness and Response to Incidents at Major Hazard Facilities

Use of Advanced Techniques to Model the Dispersion of Chlorine in Complex Terrain

The EU Seveso II Directive requires operators of major hazard facilities to prepare safety reports for sites storing quantities of dangerous substances in excess of specified levels. The safety report should include an assessment of the risk associated with the facility, which will include an evaluation of the effects of releases of dangerous substances to the environment. The models commonly used for assessing the dispersion of dense gases in the atmosphere are based on the ‘ideal’ of flat, unobstructed terrain. For ‘real’ situations such models may be unduly pessimistic in their predictions and, in certain circumstances, may even be optimistic. This paper describes work undertaken by Environmental Resources Management (ERM), in association with sub-consultants Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc. (RWDI) and the Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL) to model the dispersion of chlorine in complex terrain. The work involved physical modelling of releases in a Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel (BLWT) and the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The paper focuses on the key findings of the study, which provide a dramatic insight into how terrain and buildings can fundamentally alter the dispersion behaviour of dense gases. The results show how flat terrain models may overestimate the chlorine hazard range by as much as a factor of 5, whilst the predicted direction of travel of the cloud may err by up to 90°. This has implications not only for the assessment of risks associated with major hazard facilities, but also for land-use planning in the vicinity of the site and emergency preparedness.

Land use planning policies stemming from the implementation of the SEVESO-II Directive in the EU

A comparative assessment of three approaches in land use planning around chemical sites is presented. Managing the risk from potentially hazardous sites through appropriate choice of the uses of land surrounding the sites is also suggested by the so called `SEVESO' EU directive already implemented in most of the Member States of the EU. Two general philosophies—one purely `deterministic' based only on consequences, and one exhibiting, as complete as possible, a quantification of the uncertainties—are presented and compared to a more general multicriteria decision analysis framework. The latter approach explicitly introduces additional to the risk dimensions to the decision problem and avoids the use of ad hoc risk criteria. The comparison of the three approaches is exemplified by an application to a major hazard facility site in Greece.