(117b) Applied Risk-Based Process Safety: A Consolidated Risk Register and Focus on Risk Communications

The oil industry recognizes a need to focus on process safety incidents, specifically those related to major accidents, through processes of continuous improvement. While the OSHA regulation of 1992 was a step change in industry, several recent events have triggered further risk reduction efforts in the hopes of further improvements.

Novel approaches directly addressing mechanical integrity, based on risk assessment and barrier management, are also being implemented to enhance the operational control against loss of containment events ? precursors to major accidents. BP Alaska has developed a Hazard and Risk Register covering its operations on the North Slope. This was created by consolidating pre-existing technical risk studies, in several different qualitative and quantified formats, and converting these into common units of risk, using a standard risk matrix. Using the register, the higher risks were analyzed in greater detail using a barrier diagram approach. This identifies the causes of loss of containment and documents the controls deployed against these ? either preventing the cause and or mitigating its outcome. The controls are scored for effectiveness and the control owner documented.

It is industry experience that once a reasonable number of higher risks are fully developed, and the main controls have been identified, these become the most important to monitor and ensure effectiveness through facility lifetime. Compared to other approaches that focus on hardware safety functions (e.g. relief valves, shutdown systems), this approach also addresses key procedural and administrative controls (e.g. work permits, fatigue management). A process of continuous risk reduction is applied to these higher risks. As the build-outs identify the causes it becomes clear those routes which might have an insufficient number of controls or equally might have the controls but which are not fully effective. Risk reduction is often more effective by enhancing these existing controls rather than adding new controls.

This approach converts technical risk studies that are normally difficult to communicate to operations or maintenance personnel into more usable risk management controls that can be easily communicated and used in routine operations, and verified as part of a facility Process Safety audit.