I recently caught up with Harrie Duisters, Technology Director of OCI N.V., and Committee Chair of the upcoming 62nd Annual Safety in Ammonia Plants and Related Facilities Symposium in Brooklyn, New York.
In your opinion, what is the most important current trend in ammonia and safety?
In the short term, it is key that we keep operating our plants in a safe and efficient way: personal, process and environmental incidents must be avoided. The long-term issue we will have to work on is the sustainability of our industry. We are a big consumer of fossil fuel (natural gas) and emitter of CO2, which contributes greatly to global warming.
What sessions or speakers would you like to highlight as new or noteworthy for the 62nd Annual Safety in Ammonia Plants and Related Facilities Symposium?
The most valuable sessions are those that discuss real incidents that have happened in our industry. These presentations are "real life" and thus very interesting for the audience, and valuable "lessons learned" are shared.
What message would you like the audience to take away from this year’s Ammonia and Safety Symposium?
Learn from the presentations, participate in the discussions, network with your industry colleagues, and share all this information with your colleagues in the plant.
How do you envision safety in ammonia plants advancing some of the Grand Challenges in engineering and society (medicine, health informatics, etc.)?
Our industry will have to keep track on societal developments, e.g., internet and data-processing. One development that can help us to improve our plants is using more advanced IT tools, such as collecting more online plant data and processing data in more advanced ways, utilizing new software tools to improve the controls and the safeguards of our plants.
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