(48o) Facility Siting for Major Projects – Implementation of Consequence Analysis/Quantitative Risk Analysis, a Project Development Lifecycle Framework

“A major property insurance broker cites 16 petrochemical and chemical losses of greater than $150,000,000 during the period of 1970 to 1999. Of these, 7 were VCE incidents, 6 were other types of explosions, 2 were hurricane related, and 1 was earthquake related. One of the lessons learned is to consider facility siting issues for both inside and outside the plant boundary.” (Marsh, 2001)

Currently there exists NO specific regulation and standardization to apply Consequence Analysis and Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA) for facility siting over the lifecycle of project development in Canada. There appears to be a gradual trend towards increasing use of quantitative risk assessment methods in the chemical process industry ………This trend was evident in Europe (http://pscfiles.tamu.edu/research/strategic-research-plan.pdf).

Consequence Analysis and Quantitative Risk Analysis as enabling force for facility siting in Canada for major projects is limited or non-existent.  The focus of this paper is to establish a framework to outline inputs, structured process for scenario and assumptions development, activities, tools, decision criteria for scope implications, risk reduction methodology, stakeholders, and sequence of those activities over the project lifecycle as they relate to progressive elaboration of project development. This is important because the research output will provide the Body of Knowledge for industry to implement facility siting to minimize risk over the lifecycle of the project. This will also serve as a basis for policy makers and government to gradually establish a regulatory framework to initially provide sanction/go-ahead for projects requesting regulatory approval and eventually to monitor design/development as it impacts overall safety in and outside of the proposed facility over the lifecycle of project development. The key aspect of the paper is to outline an ‘iterative’ framework that goes hand in hand with progressive elaboration of project development lifecycle. 

Facility siting and layout is a process for finding an optimal location for a chemical or petroleum processing site and then arranging the units and equipment. They are related to how to select a site, how to recognize and assess long-term risks, and how to lay out the facilities and equipment within that site. Appropriate siting and layout establishes a foundation for a safe and secure site. A site that is well laid out will have a lower risk level than a poorly laid out site. The potential for toxic impacts, fire escalation, and explosion damage will be lower. The risk to personnel and the surrounding community will be reduced. Additionally, maintenance will be easier and safer to perform. However, these benefits do not come without associated costs. Separation distances translate to real estate and spread-out plant layout (i.e. longer piping/pipeline) that costs money. This may also translate into separation distance between public establishment (e.g. highway, households etc.) and specific plant. The framework will also recommend decision points for layout selection over the lifecycle of project development to take advantage of information available at the time to optimize tradeoffs between initial capital investment, life cycle costs, and risk reduction.