Sanjeev Saraf — Active Contributor

OSHA Process Safety Management (PSM) program is nearly two decades old and I believe that the 14 PSM elements provide a good basic framework for facilities to create a safety program.

What OSHA PSM lacks is quality metric.

Let me explain further.

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) are a part of today’s corporate growth strategy. As a part of M&A due diligence various critical business issues are evaluated. But what about safety performance of the company you are looking to acquire or merge with?

You will say that most M&A in oil and gas/chemical processing industries are asset-driven. You look at what the pots and pans can do for you in the future and base your M&A decision.

Natural gas pipelines have caused incidents leading to fatalities, injuries, and property damages.

To be precise, there have been an average of 50 serious gas pipeline incidents every year in the U.S. between 1990-2009 (Source: http://primis.phmsa.dot.gov/comm/reports/safety/SerPSI.html?nocache=4823) resulting in more than 300 fatalities. Majority of the reported gas incidents have occurred on the gas distribution lines – i.e.  gas pipeline systems that are found in thousands of communities from coast to coast and distribute natural gas to our homes and businesses.

[Read more…]

Risk is a perception.

Our perception of risks is mainly affected by two factors:

(a) whether we are voluntarily accepting the risk. 

A good example is a refinery worker considers the risks at workplace lower than his cousin who has only read about chemical plants; and

(b) potential consequences of event or act or decision.

LNG spilled onto water sometime undergoes a rapid phase transition (RPT) or physical explosion creating localized overpressures.

Such physical explosions are also observed when water contacts molten metal or hot lava (steam explosions)

When you are driving on a highway, usually there is a speed limit. If you exceed this limit, a cop can give you a ticket.

In Houston, most highways have a speed limit of 65-70 miles per hour…although most drivers appear to assume it implies “90-mph is okay”.

Let us say the city of Houston were to remove the speed restrictions.

Instead they put forward the mandate “drive safely”.

Generally speaking, 5-6 things have to go wrong for an incident to occur. Furthermore, these events or failures have to occur in a certain sequence.

The characteristics of mega disasters is that 5-6 events with fairly low probabilities of occurrence line up.

About a year ago, the Minerals Management Services (MMS) proposed a new rule that would require operators of oil and gas operations in the US Outer Continental Shelf to develop and implement Safety and Environmental Management System (SEMS).

It is expected that the rule will be promulgated sometime this year (2010).

I noticed that API-14C recommends monitoring of 2-ppm (and higher) SO2 levels. I felt this was a really low threshold value for SO2 .

What surprised me further is that the Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health (IDLH) value for SO2 is 100-ppm…same as H2S!

Oxygen Deficient Atmosphere (<19.5%)

Source: Compressed Natural Gas Safety Bulletin, SB-2, 1992.

We all know that air is mostly nitrogen…79% to be precise. What may not be a common knoweldge is that colorless odorless Nitrogen has led to asphyxiation and fatalities and is a risk particularly for personnel working in confined spaces and personnel utilizing breathing air systems.

According to the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) research there were 80 nitrogen asphyxiation fatalities between 1992-2002. This translates to one nitrogen asphyxiation death every seven weeks. Approximately, 10% of fatalities were due to attempts to rescue person in confined spaces.

Take a look at the following video from Dominion Power:

While evaluating impact of a toxic release, you may be interested in how the concentration of the toxicant increases in a room and its impact on indoor personnel. For example, if there is a H2S release in the plant and you want to estimate the increase in concentration in a nearby office building.

I want to share a simple model to estimate indoor concentrations following an outdoor toxic release. [Read more…]

Earlier I had written about the use of RFID for tracking hazardous substances. One of the readers, Sujith, wrote to me that RFID can be a ignition source and thus pose a potential for fire/explosion.

As safety professionals, we are often required to consider value of life in decision making.

So, what is the economic value of a life? According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), it is $5.8 million [in 2010]. Click on the link below to read more…