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Abstract:
Today’s an offshore platform costs billions of dollar to prepare and operate which is one of
the costly affairs in the upstream oil sector. As the whole process has to deal with
flammable fluids which are very risky and a small hazard in this can cause a big hazard to
the industry in terms of money, human life, etc. This requires a detailed study of the
possible hazards exists on the offshore platform during the designing phase of them. In this
paper an attempt is made to review the possible hazards exists on an offshore platforms
and also suggested the safeguards to take proper action to minimize them. The HAZID
technique which is used to identify the possible existing hazards is discussed.
Introduction:
Since 1950s, chemical process safety is demanding advanced technology to mitigate the
risks. On the consequences of these risks, today safety is also become an important factor
in production. Now, it has developed into a scientific discipline that includes many highly
technical and complex theories and practices. Process safety emphasizes the use of
appropriate technological tools to provide information for making safety decisions with
respect to plant design and operation. Chemical process safety is referred with the help of
these Safety, hazard, and risk terms. Their definitions follow:
An oil field, especially offshore field, is by its nature very dangerous highly flammable fluids
under high pressure are being handled by large complex equipment in a hostile
environment. If anything went wrong there is a very high probability of losses in terms of
money, death, reputation, environment, etc. There is billions of dollars invested in the
production of oil and gas as reservoir, oil platform, wells, equipment, etc.
To protect this great investment of life and property, safety system have been developed and
incorporated to reduce the chances of mishap occurring phenomenon and minimize its
effect.
*Corresponding author
Previous work:
Previous work done by Harstad has emphasized safety as an integral part of the various
stages of plant (platform) design. He has given several examples of this approach; however,
no systematic methodology or guidelines were proposed to conduct such integrated design
[1]. The work done by Medonos has put forward a methodology for integrated safety
engineering, which incorporates HAZOP and other risk assessment techniques in safety
assessment and development of an effective safety management [2]. But, Faisal I. Khan,
Paul R. Amyotte effort to present a detailed picture of the potential for inherent safety
considerations in offshore oil and gas activities [3]. While Henry Orbz emphasized his work
on identifying the various possible hazards exists in chemical industry and categorize them
in various level of severity [4].
Also Mamoun Naciri, Single Buoy Moorings Inc. and Leen Poldervaart, Single Buoy
Moorings Inc. carried out their work on modeling of LNG terminals and emphasized their
design work on the HAZID conclusion [5]. While, Kiho Moon, Seok-Ryong Song, Jorge
Ballesio, Gary Fitzgerald, Gregory Knight worked to identify potential gas release scenarios
by conducting a HAZID that focused on the novel features of the gas turbine propulsion
system [6]. Also, F.Faber, A.E.J.Bliault, L.R.Resweber P.S.Jones, summarises Shell's
ongoing technology developments aimed at practical, safe and economic floating production
systems to deliver oil/condensate and LNG from the same unit [7].
In this paper an attempt is made to review the possible hazards, which exists on an offshore
platform. This study also suggested the possible safeguards to adopt proper action for
minimizing relevant threats. Finally, HAZID study developed a HAZID worksheet, which
helps to identify major hazards on possible causes as well as its consequences with possible
safeguards.
Risk analysis is used for the assessment of the hazards in the association of process plant
and their storage installations. It can be assess by solving three questions.
The first and basic step of hazard identification (the first question) is purely qualitative and
is often called a safety study. Such a study may reveal aspects of the plant or installation
which require more consideration. It is then necessary to answer the next two questions in
order to complete the risk analysis. The results of the analysis are used for judgment about
the acceptability of the risk and for decision making. Qualitative answers are often given to
the second and third questions. However, recent developments have involved the
application of quantitative techniques for obtaining answers to these two questions. The use
of these techniques is termed as quantitative risk analysis (QRA). The whole exercise may
be called risk assessment.
In earlier years, many companies did not use quantitative techniques after the identification
stage. However, decisions were made and actions taken to control specific hazards
considering (qualitatively) probabilities and consequences. In a sense this is an elementary
form of risk analysis, but at a less sophisticated level than assessments involving
quantitative consideration of probabilities and consequences. However, over the years, the
use of in-depth risk assessment ranging from hazard identification to computation of
individual and societal risk has increased. Now the question arises related to abrupt
behavior in the safety of an offshore platform, which are follows as:
• Sabotage
• Human error
Nothing is completely safe in this world. No one will do everything ideal and every piece of
equipment will fail eventually one day. So the safety system must be built and operated to
reduce the hazards when failure occurs. Offshore oil and gas production also involves
traditional hazards with the potential of severe occupational accidents. There are risks of
dropped objects in heavy lifting and materials handling in connection with drilling,
maintenance and transportation of consumables. Operators work at height or between
heavy mobile objects in various drilling, inspection and maintenance operations. Adverse
weather conditions may increase the probability of serious accidents further.
HAZID
The Hazard Identification (HAZID) study is a tool for hazard identification, which is used
early in a project as soon as process flow diagrams, draft heat and mass balances, and plot
layouts are available. Existing site infrastructure, weather, and geotechnical data are also
required, these being a source of external hazards. The method is a design‐enabling tool,
acting to help organize the HSE deliverables in a project. The structured brainstorming
technique typically involves designer and client personnel engineering disciplines, project
management, commissioning and operations. The main major findings and hazard ratings
help to deliver HSE compliance, and form part of the project Risk Register required by many
licensing authorities.
A well‐organized HAZID study activity will deliver a good identification of hazards and
safeguards at an early stage in the design of a facility. The study output helps to ensure
that:
• Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) hazards are revealed at an early stage in the
project, before significant costs have been incurred
• Hazards are recorded and action are taken so that they can be avoided, mitigated or
highlighted during design
This worksheet is prepared for possible hazards on an offshore platform. This study is
proposing for aforesaid context, with the help of relevance literature [8]-[13]. In this HAZID
worksheet, a detailed study is done by proposing possible threats, and their causes and
consequences. It helps to create possible safeguards for relevant threats.
This study shows a significant step towards hazard identification on an offshore platform. It
also incorporates all the possible existing hazard identification systems, which are indeed of
changes to make flexible this hazard system. A schema is proposed to resolve most of the
risks and an assessment process is quite useful to solve the analyzed risks. In this
proposed study, some specific threats are identified such as Combustible atmosphere in
process equipment prior to start-up, Riser pipeline releases and well blowout, which are
highly sensitive to occur. Therefore, the proper safeguards are taken into consideration to
reduce these relevant threats.
References:
[1] Harstad, E., “Safety as an integrated part of platform design”, In Proceeding of 1st
International Conference on Health, Safety and Environment, Hague, Netherlands (1991).
[2] Medonos, S., “Use of advanced methods in integrated safety engineering”, Offshore
Mechanics and Arctic Engineering (OMAE) Conference, Houston, TX, (1994).
[3] Faisal I. Khan, Paul R. Amyotte, “Inherent safety in offshore oil and gas activities: a
review of the present status and future directions”, Journal of Loss Prevention in the
Process Industries, Vol. 15 No.4, pp.279-89 (2002).
[4] H. Ozog, Hazard identification, analysis and control; Chemical Engineering (New York),
Volume 92 (18), p. 161 (1985)
[5] Mamoun Naciri, Single Buoy Moorings Inc. and Leen Poldervaart, Single Buoy Moorings
Inc., “Design Aspects of SPM LNG Terminals in Shallow Water” Offshore Technology
Conference, Houston, Texas, 3 May-6 May 2004, ISBN 978-1-55563-251-9
[6] Kiho Moon, Seok-Ryong Song, Jorge Ballesio, Gary Fitzgerald, Gregory Knight, “Fire risk
assessment of gas turbine propulsion system for LNG carriers” Journal of Loss Prevention
in the Process Industries, Volume 22, Issue 6, November 2009, Pages 908–914
[7] F.Faber, A.E.J.Bliault, L.R.Resweber P.S.Jones, “Floating LNG Solutions from the
Drawing Board to Reality”, Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, Texas, 6 May-9 May
2002, ISBN 978-1-55563-249-6.
[8] Sinnott, R. K., Safety and loss prevention, in Chemical Engineering (by J. M. Coulson
and J. F. Richardson) (1983)
[9] Kavianian, H. R., Rao, J. K. and Brown, G. V., “Application of Hazard Evaluation
Techniques to the Design of Potentially Hazardous Industrial Chemical Processes”. (Div. of
Training and Manpower Devel., Nat Inst. Occup Safety and Health, Cincinnati, OH). (1992)
[10] McCoy, S. A., Wakeman, S. J., Larkin, F. D., Chung, P. W. H., Rushton, A. G. and Lees,
F. P., “HAZID, a computer aid for hazard identification: 2. Unit model system”, Trans
IChemE, Part B, Proc Safe Env Prot, 77(B6): 328–334.
[11] Rushton, A. G., “Quality Assurance of Hazard and Operability Study Performance in
the Context of Offshore Safety”. Report to HSE, Offshore Division1995,
[12] G.L. Wells, C.J. Seagrave, R.N.C. Whiteway; Flowsheeting for Safety, IChemE, London
(1977)
[13] H.G. Lawley; “Operability studies and hazard analysis”; Loss Prevention, vol.8 AIChE,
New York, pp. 105. (1974)