Process Safety in Oil and Gas Operations- Past, Present and Future Direction

Proper training and protocols may have solved or prevented the problem. With more problems to add to the list of chain reactions from the accident, the government had to change industry safety which in turn, increased industry safety. New study groups were used to research the incident. New organizations had to be created to conduct proper training implementing the safety measures for the power plant operators. Many new publications had to be brought into existence to have better oversight of nuclear power plant operations. A

Ideally, a comprehensive heat stress program will include several elements, including environmental and medical monitoring (i.e., measurements of pulse rate, oral temperature, and/or weight loss) (OSHA, 1993). Sites also lacked verbal warnings of potential heat stress hazards nor crew rest areas, which endangers personal wellbeing. The heat stress protocols of the organization all varied inconsistently and did not entail a comprehensive program. Between the five superfund incinerator sites multiple citations were issued, thus accumulating to thousands in fines. The citations ranged in severity; from improperly secured high-voltage boxes (Citation 1910.305(b),(g)) to inadequately grounded or bonded drums used to transfer flammable liquids (Citation 1910.106) (OSHA, 1993). Supervisors must implement on-going self-assessment programs that monitor and evaluate employee health and skills. Regular assessment is imperative to ensure employees are aware of their surroundings and adhere to

The Grangemouth contract involves carrying out operational, maintenance and project work on a large petrochemical contract. The hazards and risks associated with these activities are therefore diverse, and as the Texas City2 and Buncefield3 explosions showed they can have catastrophic consequences. The controls in place are suitably robust and exacting as you would expect when working on such a site. The most significant hazards associated with Ondeo's activities onsite were deemed to be working in confined spaces when hand excavating on the firemain project and the unloading of 96% sulphuric acid at the water treatment plant (WTP). A number of opportunities for improvement were identified with these activities which included: • The usage of new technologies such as hydro excavation and ground

The Geismar (Williams Olefins plant explosion) happened 13th of June 2013 at a petrochemical plant in Geismar. The catastrophic event resulted in death of two employees and injured 147 others. The explosions involved rupture equipments, a heat exchanger (reboiler) shell disastrously rupturing making boiling liquids expanding therefore causing steam explosion during a non routine operational activities. This plant had no prior record of such incident until this particular one. This plant is situated in an industrial area about 20miles of southeast of Baston Rouge, Louisiana. The plant was established in 1968 by the Allied chemical, but was transferred to Olefins William (Geismar) subsequent to a merger in 1999 with the Union Texas petroleum.

On 20 April 2010, an explosion at Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and led to the worst oil spill in the US history. The well owner BP was found to be responsible for the leak. The report will identify the risk management issues raised by the case and discuss the firm’s actions towards those issues. Also, an analysis of its crisis management followed by the comparison with Johnson & Johnson’ Tylenol Crisis is another focus in this report. Furthermore, lessons from the oil spill will be concluded and several recommendations will be presented to develop effective risk management system. In general, this report aims to assess BP’s failures in risk and crisis management and then find proper management practices

Union carbide and the Bhopal disaster, is a disaster that happened due to a MIC gas leaked from the pesticide plant of union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) and killed almost half of the population in surrounding area closed to plant. Not following the rules and regulations that are required to run a pesticide company and moreover safety requirements were not followed according to the manual specified. UCIL goal was the same when we compare to any regular business, which is earning profits. They used to make profits, but exclusive of maintaining proper safety requirements, safety rules were four times below in compare to USA safety standards. Top level management is the key for whole organization but in this condition they were lacking safety

Fast forward three years and BP’s offshore rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico became one on the worst man caused environmental disasters and worse, an US investigative report said that the incident occurred due to management negligence and the inability to identify the risks they faced and to manage them. ( Kaplan & Mikes, 2012 June HBR). The objective of citing this incident about Hayward is not to

The aftermath of Piper Alpha was a complete rehaul of safety processes on oil rigs. The disaster prompt the U.K government to pass over a 100 new safety Procedures and harder regulations regarding the use of oil rigs in the North Sea. The U.K government also change who managements these safety of the oil rigs from the department of energy to the department of health and safety. I learned from the research regarding this disaster that even if a system looks soiled on paper and in practiced it can always be destroy to a lacked of commutating and a total lack of

All these three root causes can be attributed to the unscrupulous cost reduction where safety of the employees had been severely compromised. This is clearly an ethical issue. In a press release by US Chemical Safety Board (CSB), it is stated that CSB concluded “organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation" had caused the Texas City explosion . Despite repeatedly warning about the risk, BP chose to ignore it and put profit in higher priority than safety . The Texas City explosion could have been avoided with proper maintenance program and sufficient manpower.

BP (British Petroleum) is one of the leading companies that are delivering energy products and services to the people around the world. In this report, we studied BP’s risk management plan for preventing oil spill. The main reason for choosing BP and its oil spill preparedness plan is that the oil companies have become increasingly vulnerable to unwillingly cause disasters and BP is one of them. An event that highlighted this vulnerability and subsequently drew attention to the need to investigate, is the BP oil spill in 2010 was one of the worst oil disasters that affected environment adversely. Issues such as these have been a serious concern for the oil companies around the world.

While safety standards have been put into place by the federal government for ExxonMobil’s refineries, negligence on behalf of the company has caused workplace injuries and

Although the accident was caused by a mechanical failure, it spiralled out of control because of an insufficient safety system. BP acted inefficiently and their carelessness cost the lives of people and damaged the environment, nevertheless this does not mean they acted in an unethical way as they did not knowingly put

The US Chemical Safety Board stated that there "is a solid case for citing some fault on cost cutting" in the Texas City disaster. In fact was BP aggressively cut maintenance investment in their refinery by 84% between the years 1992-2000 . Additionally BP lacked many company wide safety standards and left the decision making to plant managers, a position which had a high turnover rate . Cost cutting was eventually handed down to the employees in the form of a hazardous work place, with 15 deaths and over 170 others injured in the Texas City explosion.

Between the oil boom period of 2003 to 2013, according to the data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) as compiled by the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), occupational fatality rate of oil and gas workers was seven times higher than the national average (Mode & Conway, 2008) and 2.5% higher than that of construction workers (Witter, Tenney, Clark & Newman, 2014). Not neglecting other hazards like chemical exposure, noise and other environmental hazards present, accidents resulting from transportation and direct contact of workers with equipment far exceeded others (Mason, Retzer, Hill & Lincoln, 2015). In a sharp contrast, according to the data released by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the recordable non-fatal accidents in the construction sector was three times more than that of the oil and gas extraction sector (Witter et al). Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a government safety regulation and administration body has frowned at the increasing trend (Cable, 2013), promising new safety

This research report is about the Piper Alpha Disaster that happened in 1988. Being one of the major oil production oil-rig in the UK, the accident that took place more than 20 years ago caught the attention of many, especially those in the field. The happening was largely due to the complacency of the supervisors as well as the safety measures of the management. Using the internet, academic journals and textbooks available, the research was conducted by referring to various sources of information regarding the incident. After the explosion there are many new prevention steps taken in this field of industry as well as new managing system of the offshore regulatory control.