Fire, environmental impact management

The Chemical Process Industry (CPI) uses various quantitative and qualitative techniques to assess the reliability and risk of process equipment, process systems, and chemical manufacturing operations. These techniques identify the interactions of equipment, systems, and persons that have potentially undesirable consequences. In the case of reliability analyses, the undesirable consequences (e.g., plant shutdown, excessive downtime, or production of off-specification product) are those incidents which reduce system profitability through loss of production and increased maintenance costs. In the case of risk analyses, the primary concerns are human injuries, environmental impacts, and system damage caused by occurrence of fires, explosions, toxic material releases, and related hazards. Quantification of risk in terms of the severity of the consequences and the likelihood of occurrence provides the manager of the system with an important decisionmaking tool. By using the results of a quantitative risk analysis, we are better able to answer such questions as, Which of several candidate systems poses the least risk Are risk reduction modifications necessary and What modifications would be most effective in reducing risk ... 

Planning aids the firefighting operations immensely by determining what is needed to extinguish the fire or manage a controlled burn, and how to deliver the required resources and manage firewater to prevent environmental impact. 

The constructor will be required to provide a site safety manual which will address, for example, fire protection, accident reporting and analysis, work planning and training of construction personnel. The manual will also include what constitutes an environmental impact statement for the plant construction. Safety audits and inspections will be undertaken during construction. The emphasis will be on a leading indicator approach to the management of safety. The selected constmctor will comply with the CDM regulations (Reference 9.9). 

Fire, explosions and environmental pollution are the most serious "unpredictable" life affecting and business losses having an impact on the hydrocarbon industries today. These issues have essentially existed since the inception of industrial scale petroleum and chemical operations during the middle of the last century. They continue to occur with ever increasing financial impacts. It almost appears that the management of industry is oblivious, or else must be careless, to the potential perils under their command. Although in some circles most accidents can be thought of as non-preventable, all accidents are in fact preventable. 

Facilities designing or adding environmental control, fire safety, or hazard control must ensure that these systems do not adversely impact the process or equipment. This is an endorsement for OSHAs Management of Change (for a non-covered process). 

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