(70ae) Process Safety Near-Miss Management System in Takreer Ruwais Refinery: An Effective Tool for Applying Prevention Strategies

The primary focus of any process safety management system is always to reduce the risk of a major incident by controlling major accident hazards. Process safety events (which include near misses and minor & major incidents) are key indicators of a company’s process safety performance that demonstrate how effectively a system is working to deliver its objective of abating major accident hazards. While analysing various process safety events, we observe that there is a close relationship between near-miss events and major incidents as both have often common causes. A near-miss could be defined as a hazardous condition where the event sequence could lead to an accident if it had not been interrupted. An effective Process Safety Near-miss Management System aims to quickly recognize signals from the operational fields in order to apply prevention strategies.

TAKREER Ruwais Refinery has been reviewing process safety near miss events for many years but has developed within the last two years a detailed and systematic Process Safety Near Miss Program which is modelled after API and CCPS guidelines. This paper introduces some practical strategies adopted in Ruwais Refinery for implementing a model near miss reporting system which has contributed to excellence in health and safety. It is hoped this paper will initiate further consideration and conversation about ways to enhance involvement in Near-miss reporting and thereby reduce the occurrence of unintentional injuries, fatalities, and property-damage incidents.