(57am) Could the US Benefit from a Safety Case Type Regime?

Major process safety related incidents continue to happen in the US. According to the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) these can be prevented by applying process safety management principles. Process safety management (PSM) is the control of process hazards in order to prevent process-related injuries and incidents. The CSB has conducted several investigations with many resulting recommendations relating to improving state and federal process safety management programs. But is traditional PSM enough? Both the National Commission National Commission on BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling and the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) have recommended a safety case regime in their respective reports on the Deepwater Horizon accident and the Chevron Richmond fire. This paper explores the background to safety case, why it was developed, the types of facilities covered, and how it has evolved from its initial formulation to the current formats in several countries. Onshore process facilities, offshore oil and gas installations, and mobile drilling units all have a different format for safety case and the nature of these differences is explained. A key feature of all these is that the safety case underpins a risk-based approach to the management of process safety, which is not the focus of OSHA PSM, as an example. The benefits of a risk-based approach are presented along with some statistics which provide some indication as to the success of the safety case approach.

The issues of implementing a safety case regime in the USA are discussed and whether the potential risk reduction benefits outweigh the issues, if any, associated with a safety case approach. Of course, not all facilities will need a safety case approach, but potentially higher risk facilities or those sited near populated areas would benefit.