(115a) Warning: Iceberg Ahead! Navigating Our Way Around Process Safety Complacency.

There is often the belief that a number of million hours without a lost time injury means that a plant is “safe”.

Senior management at plants and complexes around the world declare that they have operated the plant or complex for years or even decades without a major incident, or that they have world-class management systems in place to prevent incidents from happening.

Over-confidence/complacency at both site and Corporate levels is a common theme noted amongst the key learnings from numerous losses around the world.

Having visited a great many onshore oil, gas, chemical and petrochemical plants and complexes across the US, LATAM, Middle East and Europe, I have found that an over-arching and prevalent belief of “that can never happen to us” lends itself to poor Process Safety understanding, awareness and culture, and sometimes leads to accidents. Some of them, major.

The development of the right Process Safety culture in and throughout an Organization (along with the development and implementation of a robust mechanical integrity program) is key to maintaining the safety of its facility/ies.

In addressing the key topic of this presentation; chronic unease (which is essentially the opposite of complacency), I will touch upon key causes of losses, how to get the process safety fundamentals right, Process Safety culture warning signs and lessons learned in industry.