US EPA

8746957 

Meetings & Symposia 

Safety barrier management and risk assessment: Integration for safer operations in the Oil & Gas industry 

Bucelli, M; Paltrinieri, N; Landucci, G; Cozzani, V 

2017 

Institution of Chemical Engineers 

2017-May 

English 

Conventional risk analysis does not provide sufficient information to support the decision-making process in safety-critical systems, such as in the Oil & Gas industry. For instance, safety equipment deteriorates with time, operations may tend to delay or overlap and procedures may be disregarded in special circumstances. The development of such conditions has the potential to increase risk. Appropriate tools are needed to assess and monitor the risk trend, in order to allow for higher safety levels during activities. Potential benefits from iteration of risk evaluation are already well-known to authorities, academia and industry. Relevant regulations require reiteration of risk assessment every 5 years or in case of system changes. Most of the risk management frameworks mention the need for continuous update, but do not go into detail. Moreover, the topic of iteration of risk assessment is gaining momentum in the scientific community, assuming a number of forms and adopting different methodological approaches. This contribution focuses on the enhancement of existing approaches for systematic and quantitative analysis of safety barriers. Barrier management philosophy (as suggested by the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority) and quantitative risk assessment are integrated within the Risk Barometer methodology. Such technique aims to reflect how day-to-day status changes of barriers affect the risk level of an installation. Not only technical features of barriers are addressed, but also the whole series of operational and organizational activities aimed at establishing and maintaining them. A relevant case from the petroleum industry is considered for a demonstrative application: a FPSO (Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading) operating in the Norwegian continental shelf. A set of sensitivity analyses allowed evaluating relative influence of safety barriers on the overall risk level, outlining potential intervention priorities. Findings prove the importance of integrating effective and reliable barrier management in the oil and gas industry. The modelling of the safety barriers is a focal point of the methodology, which should be addressed comprehensively, considering not only the equipment but also related operators and organization. The highest criticality is found associated to the safety barriers preventing and mitigating the loss of containment of hazardous substances handled at the installation, resulting in human and environmental risk increase. For this reason, special attention should be dedicated to this class of barriers. Combining real-time information on safety barrier performance and risk analysis evaluations, the approach presented has the capability to provide detailed risk pictures, visualizing how risk trend changes over time. Drill-down capabilities allow the evaluation of the factors concurring to risk estimation. Performance of safety barriers are visualized and compared in order to define action priorities. For this reason, the results and the approach seem adequate to support operational decision-making. © 2017 IChemE. 

Risk assessment