(55bs) Vulnerability Index: A Novel Risk Appraisal Approach

The notion of vulnerability is fundamental to the risks that potentially can disrupt the operations directly, in varied ways. Thus, this paper is aimed to determine the factors that extant vulnerability levels in the Oil Refinery complex of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) located at Mumbai. The Vulnerability Index (VI) is calculated using a set of 3 primary vectors, arrived for safe execution of Non-routine jobs (NRJ) in a running plant: Plant location, Nature of Job and Human factor. The outcome is escalated in the workflow process through internal communication protocol for necessary mitigation of Hazard vulnerability levels. It was found that the vulnerability indices for the study area were very low, low and medium, which did not show a very critical situation. Fluidized Catalytic Cracking (FCC) plant was found with low level of vulnerability. In contrast, in Fuels Refinery Expansion (FRE) plant, the vectors with greater vulnerability were located in the west battery limit of the plant, which includes furnace and pipe-alley area. Regarding Green Fuel Emission Control (GFEC) plant noted that the chemical handling vulnerability is more evident, and the vectors with medium index of vulnerability are inundated in the extreme process condition the plant operates. The proposed methodology was found to throw critical insight in risk appraisal, which is pro-active safety measure for alleviating the specific hazard potential of executing a non-routine type of jobs in a running plant, handling Class A/B products and operating in extreme process conditions. Hence, helping substantiate the resilience element in the plan for Disaster Management and Emergency Response.