(40f) Risk Assessment of the Offshore Petroleum Platform Using an Integrated Method of HAZOP, FTA and LOPA

Nowadays, the offshore petroleum industry has become one of the most important parts of petroleum industry. However, the offshore petroleum platforms are full of risks due to the long distance away from the land, the easily explosive nature of oil and gas, the improper operation and management of workers, etc.. In fact, the accidents of offshore oilfield always caused serious consequences, such as the fire and explosion of the leaked hydrocarbons, the injuries and deaths of the personnel. Therefore, the risk assessment techniques were developed in order to reduce the risk. This work carried out the risk assessment on the fire and explosion caused by hydrocarbon leak of offshore petroleum platforms using an integrated a method of Hazard and Operability Analysis (HAZOP), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) and Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA). Firstly, the deviated process parameters of the technological process of petroleum production were analyzed in order to obtain the causes and consequences of occasional hydrocarbon leak with HAZOP. Then, the FTA was applied to obtain the causes from the consequences of one accident following the HAZOP analysis. The failure of the equipment was found as the main causes that lead to the petroleum leakage. Accordingly, the risk reduction measures were proposed. It was also found that more specific consequences were found than using every single method. Finally, the effectiveness of those risk control measures was evaluated and the failure frequency was calculated with the LOPA method. Furthermore, both the residual risk with and without the added risk reduction measures were also calculated, which was returned back to the HAZOP to improve its effectiveness. In brief, the new method that integrates HAZOP, FTA and LOPA applied onto the risk assessment of offshore petroleum platform could provide a new thinking of risk management of offshore oilfieds.