In any profession, process safety and risk management is an important set of guidelines that need to be established. However, process safety and risk management is essential in an engineering environment and can mean the difference between life and death. Thus, it is important that these rules are thoroughly gone over multiple times and followed down to the most minute detail.
Process safety engineers have important jobs because they prevent harm by catching any malfunctions with machinery or identifying risky situations early. They figure out the possible outcomes of what could go wrong and then proceed to think of ways to prevent it from occurring and how to handle the situation should it ever arise. These decisions help inhibit loss of life, destruction of property, and reputation that can be damaged through hazardous processes in the workplace. Process safety engineers must be knowledgeable in several areas, including the following: engineering standards and practices, principles of human error reduction, process hazards analysis methodologies, risk analysis and assessment methodologies, and decision analysis methodologies. Their knowledge is constantly being tested and expanded, as they must keep up with the most current codes and regulations. Process safety engineers are able to reduce risk in the operations in an engineering environment by adding more layers of protection and finding better material that is less toxic to be exposed to. In the case during which a process safety engineer does not do his job properly, it can result in harm or damage that is irreversible. When machinery does not function properly or is not up to code, damage can occur to machinery and people could die. This would create a great financial loss for the company that has to pay for these things.
In process safety, risk is classified into categories as low, medium, or high. One instance where process safety management could have prevented the loss of life and property occurred in Channelview, Texas on July 5, 1990. One of the oxygen analyzers in ARCO’s wastewater tanks at their chemical plant in Texas had malfunctioned and was unable to see that the tank had reached the oxygen levels of a flammable atmosphere. The company had decided to perform maintenance on the tank, so that they could repair the nitrogen compressor. An oxygen analyzer had been installed as a precaution, but it was not enough to prevent the buildup of oxygen and hydrocarbons that had formed from the peroxide decomposition. When the tank’s compressor was turned on, it had ignited due to the flammable qualities of oxygen and the hydrocarbon vapors that had accumulated. This malfunction resulted in an explosion that caused a total of 17 deaths. Aside from these deaths, ARCO’s reputation was damaged and the physical damages of the facility totaled approximately $100 million. Because the management and workers did not know that the oxygen buildup had been caused by chemical reactions, they were unable to see that they should have kept a nitrogen purge going throughout the maintenance procedure.
Another instance during which process safety could have prevented detrimental consequences occurred in a fertilizer plant at Terra Industries in 1994. The company had discovered that a pH probe in the overflow line that was responsible for controlling the flow of nitric acid into the neutralizer was defective and was unable to detect the safe pH levels of 5.5-5.6. Thus, the plant had previously been shut down and the solution containing the ammonium nitrate had been sitting in several of the vessels in the storage tanks. Two weeks later, an explosion at the plant had occurred, injuring 18 people and killing four workers. As a result of the explosion, anhydrous ammonia was also released into the air and nitric acid in the ground. Had the procedures for safely shutting down the plant in removing the toxic solution from the vessels been followed by the workers, the company could have avoided this disastrous event and its consequences. They also could have performed a hazard analysis to have seen that the safe pH levels were not being maintained. In addition, in the investigation conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it was determined that the workers they had interviewed “indicated that they were not aware of many of the hazards of ammonium nitrate.” I find this to be shocking because this is what the solution that the plant ran on was composed of, so it only seems logical that the at least some, if not all, of the workers should be aware of this. A hazard assessment would have allowed the workers to identify that the solution of ammonium nitrate had back flowed into the nitric acid line. Thus, they could have altered the design of the plant, so that it is safer.
Another example where loss and death could had occurred because process-safety procedures were not implemented occurred on June 5, 2006 in one of Partridge-Raleigh’s oilfields in Mississippi. Two of tanks had been moved and the workers were connecting the piping between the tanks by welding the open-ended sides of the pipes. The residue of the crude oil had been removed from only one of the tanks a few days prior, but not the other. The contract worker welding the pipes was supposed to check for possible flammability by following a specific procedure, but was careless and decided to perform a quick and inaccurate test by placing a welding torch into it and turning it on. As a result, he thought it was safe to proceed with the welding, and the hydrocarbon vapor that had come from one of the pipes had ignited. The flames from this ignition had spread into the surrounding tanks that were interconnected, causing an even larger explosion. Three of the workers had been killed by the explosion, and another had been severely injured by carelessness. Companies should be aware of the people that they hire to maintain their machinery and property. If the workers had followed the proper procedures instead of performing quick and informal checks, these fatalities could have been ignored and the company would have not had to deal with the deaths or paid for the damages that occurred to the multiple tanks.
Process safety engineers plays a significant role in companies by being trained to catch problems that occur from defects in mechanics and human error. After identifying these problems, they come up with different ways to decrease the likelihood of these catastrophic events from occur. Process Hazard Analysis allows a team of these process safety engineers to evaluate the potential hazards and risks that are associated with chemical processes in a systematic way. This analysis helps determine the route that an engineer should take by providing them with the knowledge needed to make safe decisions. Although some companies and their workers may want to take short cuts to save money and/or time, it is not worth the detrimental consequences that can occur if they do not perform in-depth assessments.