Concluding Remarks

Process Safety Management (PSM) in the Fuels and Petrochemicals industry has the paradox of being well established and yet constantly challenged to improve its effectiveness and impact on process safety and profitability. Such a paradox is a natural consequence of an industry exhibiting a positive process safety culture that maintains a sense of vulnerability and sees the imperative to improve process safety. This paper addresses the often asked question, “How do we continue to improve our organization’s process safety culture?” and presents opportunities and examples for organizations to enhance their existing PSM systems and culture by further integrating PSM elements both within an organization’s established PSM systems and its other systems, processes, and procedures. The paper illustrates integration and enhancement opportunities using Relief System Design Basis (RSDB) documentation, a component of the PSM element - Process Safety Information (PSI). Specifically, illustrations show RSDB integration with the PSM elements of Mechanical Integrity (MI), Process Hazard Analysis (PHA), and Incident Investigation (II). For example, RSDB integrated with MI’s risk based inspection through a combined risk assessment can identify acute equipment MI vulnerabilities and aid in further prioritizing MI efforts and RSDB deficiency resolution. The paper then illustrates opportunities to increase profitability by highlighting RSDB integration with partial downtime throughput opportunities and improved project definition. For example, in complex facilities with multiple process units operating under an RSDB identified relief system constraint, there may be additional operational flexibility under the relief system constraint during partial downtimes. The illustrations challenge organizations that truly “own” a process safety culture to look for additional opportunities to further enhance and integrate established PSM systems into their organization to further improve safety and profitability.