HSE in Oil & Gas
Russia & CIS
Moscow, March 13-15, 2012
Christian Jochum, EPSC Director of Centre
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European Process Safety Centre (EPSC)
 Network funded 1992 by 40+ mainly European based (petro)chemical multinationals to develop best practice in major accident prevention/process safety
 Objectives:
 Information/know how exchange

Legislation (esp. Seveso II & ATEX)
 participation & co-ordination of EU funded projects
 Outputs:

Internal reports & books

User groups & public conferences
 EU projects & working groups
 Major topics 2012:

Process Safety Scenarios
 Process Safety Indicators
 Process Safety Auditing
 Process Safety Competence

Ageing Assets and Facilities

Safety Critical Equipment www.epsc.org
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How to control process safety risks
 Equipment, which is fit for purpose (hardware, control systems)
 Design
 Maintenance
 Safe operations (Safety Management System)
 Rules (Government, Trade Associations, Company)
 Operating Procedures
 Compliance  operating discipline  human factors  safety culture
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How to achieve sustainable compliance
 Compliance to operating procedures may lead to “additional” work and therefore needs
 Training
 Supervision
 Sanctions
 Sustainable compliance can only be achieved by
 Understanding, why “shortcuts” may be dangerous (competence)
 Clear message by all management levels that safety has highest priority ( safety culture )
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The problem: Failure of all process safety barriers have low probability, but high consequences
If luck as the last barrier fails ...
Deepwater Horizon, April 20, 2010
Initiating event
Specific errors in information human
De tect situa tion
Inte rpre t situa tion
Ta ke act ion
Latent errors create gaps in defences
Performance
Shaping Factors
Latent failures at the managerial level
Defences - aim for redundancy and diversity
Trajectory of accident opportunity
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Compliance requires Process Safety Culture – and this has to start from the top
 Clear commitment from senior management is needed
 Policy Statement
 Priority for safety investments (money!)
 Timely response to safety issues and concerns
 Continuous monitoring of performance
 Behave as “role model” in day-to-day activities and especially at site visits
 However, this needs understanding of process safety issues first
 Awareness for the risk of (low probability) process safety incidents cannot be presumed for senior management
 The shock of a major incident at a “similar” company has to be used, but fades away quickly
 Threat of (even criminal) litigation may help, but does not change culture
 Therefore other ways have to be found to enhance the commitment of senior management for process safety
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EPSC/EFCE project “Process Safety Awareness for Business
Leaders”
• DVD “Process Safety Pays” with video and template for PowerPoint presentation
• To be presented by senior process safety person at e.g. Management Board meeting, duration 30-60 minutes
• Video as “opener” or “teaser” to achieve positive emotions for process safety for non-technical senior management
• 7 minutes
• Process safety correlated to flying as an activity with positive connotation
• Followed by PowerPoint presentation focussing on the special issues of the company
For more information visit www.epsc.org and click on “Process Safety Pays”

Changing the mind of middle management/supervisor level
 Demonstrate clear commitment
 Timely response to safety issues and concerns
 Continuous monitoring of performance
 Behave as “role model”
 Don ´t tolerate breaching/bending procedures
 Analyze critically any breaching/bending of procedures
– Don’t turn a blind eye to rule breaking (bypassing, overriding, workarounds) even if it has no immediate consequences (which may be down to sheer luck)
– Encourage reporting of deviations, near misses etc. (“no-blame culture”)
– What was the real reason (laziness or inadequate procedure)?
 Take clear and visible action if procedures are not followed
–
Disciplinary action or update of procedure
 Cover abnormal situations as much as possible by procedures, too
–
Start up, shut down, maintenance
– “foreseeable” emergencies
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Case Study: Buncefield/GB Explosion and Fire 2005

What went wrong in Buncefield?
 Failures leading to massive overfilling of a gasoline storage tank
 Level control instrumentation failed during filling process
 Only 1 screen to control 4 filling operations (different windows)
 Overfill protection was not in operating mode
 None of these failures had been new
 Problems with the level control instrumentation had been tolerated since months
–
Some operators used a cooking timer as independent control for filling operations
 Overload of operator ´s capacity when monitoring multiple operations was evident, but ignored
 Overfill protection device was not checked after maintenance
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What Buncefield tells us about Process Safety Culture
 Management systems had been in place but not fully complied with
 Management and operators accepted serious deviations for a long period
 Consequently, management and not the operators had been hold legally responsible for the incident
 A stable process safety culture would have prevented these failures of the safety management system
 It can also be said that an effective safety management system is an indicator for a good safety culture – a ”chicken and egg – problem”)
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Process Safety Culture can drive accident rates further down
Accident
Rate
Improved
Plants / Hardware
Safety
Management
Systems
Human Factors
Culture
Time

Conclusion and outlook
 Safety Culture is not rocket science, but common sense
 There are no new systems needed, but rather a change in thinking and attitudes
 Clear commitment of all management levels is a prerequisite
 This is more difficult in process safety, as serious incidents are rare events
 Process Safety Performance Indicators, including all loss of containment events, have been developed in U.S.A. (American Petroleum Institute,
Centre of Chemical Process Safety) and Europe (European Chemical
Industry Council Cefic, EPSC) and will improve this process
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