Safety Management of Petrochemical Tank Farms

The storage tank zone of petrochemical enterprises is an important site to store liquid raw materials, intermediate products and target products. Storage mediums are volatile, flammable, explosive and toxic. Misoperation and management faults are easy to cause fire explosion and poisoning accidents. The recent accidents of storage tank zone have resulted in large economic losses and severe social influence. The reasons are not only the objective reasons such as technology but also the defects of safety management behind these accidents.

The petrochemical industry of China has been vigorously promoting Health, Safety and Environmental management system (HSE management system), so as to strengthen safety management capability. The safety management level of petrochemical industry has significantly improved after introducing the safety management system, but safety management still exists a lot of defects at present. People have studied a variety of safety management system evaluation methods at home and abroad, but there is not a mature and general evaluation method of safety management system which is suitable for the safety management system evaluation of petrochemical industry.

This article analyzed the present safety management defects of storage tank of petrochemical industry systematically, concluded the safety management assessment factors of storage tank with fishbone diagram, and constructed elements level, so as to give weight to elements at all levels and establish the safety management system evaluation method which is composed of 12 first class indicators, 37 second class indicators. The safety management evaluation system of storage tank is formed finally.

The critical incident method which is commonly used in qualitative index was adopted in this article to quantify second class indicators. The quantitative standards of second class indicators are formulated on the basis of studying many references, such as safety standardization management requirements for dangerous chemical industry enterprises, major hazards management regulations, <Guideline of safety management system implementation for petrochemical corporation , HSE management requirements of storage tank of CNPC, etc.

Through the application of safety management assessment system applied in oil two unit tank area of CNPC, the level of safety management system of storage tank and the problems existing in the security management of enterprises were obtained, so as to clear and definite the improved targets of the next phase for enterprises.

Key words: Petrochemical tank farms, Safety management assessment, Safety management program, Risk