Investigating new accident causation, risk assessment, and mitigation strategy selection tools in the petroleum industry

The inherent complexity of the processes and the volatile nature of petroleum products compel the petroleum industry to continually seek and develop tools and techniques to identify, evaluate, and mitigate potential risks that can negatively impact their process operations. Additionally, government agencies and nonprofit professional societies guide the petroleum industry with regulatory guidelines, standards, and recommended best practices. The industry and these agencies and societies work to improve operational management, to ensure safe working conditions, and to minimize risk of all kinds, so that if failures occur, damage is contained within tolerable limits (Health and Safety Executives, 2013). The currently used of both qualitative and quantitative risk assessment tools fall short in identifying and ranking potential risks in the petroleum industry and they fail to demonstrate that risks have been reduced as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP) (Fitzgerald, 2004, p. 3). Moreover, the tools are limited to large, complex, and expensive studies (Fitzgerald, 2004, p. 3). Because accidents due to both human errors and electromechanical failures still occur and result in various consequences, critics have raised concerns about the petroleum industry\u27s safety and risk mitigation credentials and question its ability to prevent major accidents. The purpose of this research is to introduce new methods that provide more detailed and structure information to decision makers. They are more robust and easier-to-use so that novice engineers can successfully apply them without experts\u27 need. This dissertation employs the publication option, where the research results are reported by presenting the text of five journal-conference publications. --Abstract, page iv

Bridging the Health, Safety, and Environment Risk Management Proficiency Gap for Future Petroleum Engineers

Health, Safety, and Environment Risk Management performance has become essential in the upstream industry due to the evolving complexity of the processes. In recent years, accidents in the oil and gas industries have resulted in catastrophic consequences as they captured the news and had an overwhelming impact to health, the environment, the financial sector, and social aspects of both the companies and their customers. Health, Safety and Environment Risk Management specialists and professionals play a major role in mitigating both risk and consequences of hazards as they assure that companies comply with different standards and perform best-recommended practices. Most of these professionals are engineers who have undergone intensive training courses by their employer as part of professional development programs. Subsequently, they continue their career path as HSE specialists once they successfully complete the program. Unfortunately, there is a gap where academia lacks the adequate educational knowledge base in Health, Safety and Environment Risk Management to establish the necessary knowledge for potential candidates in that field. This paper defines the establishment of “Health, Safety and Environment Risk Management in the Oil Industry” course in the Petroleum Engineering Department at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Not only it is designed to cover the technical aspects of HSE in the oil and gas industry, but it also enhances soft skills many students tend to overlook such as communications skills, safety awareness, ethical responsibilities, and most importantly, creating safety culture by exposing HSE awareness and knowledge to cater to the oil and gas industry. This course will be the corner stone for establishing a new petroleum engineering focus area where the department tries to expand it into a certificate program by collaborating with other departments on campus which offer different courses on a variety of topics related to HSE

Evaluating GREEN as a New Risk Reduction and Mitigation Strategy in the Petroleum Industry

PresentationThe Petroleum industry uses different risk mitigation strategies to mitigate potential failures within its facilities. Yet, these strategies could not prevent major accidents, on different scales, from occurring as they negatively impact the industry. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Generated Risk Event Effect Neutralization (GREEN) as a new tool to select adequate risk mitigation strategy to prevent potential failures in petroleum industry. More than fifty major accidents in the industry underwent GREEN evaluation and compared with existing risk mitigation strategies used in to mitigate potential failures

Evaluating Generated Risk Event Effect Neutralization as a New Mitigation Strategy Tool in the Upstream Industry

The upstream industry uses diverse risk mitigation approaches to mitigate eventual failures within its facilities. Yet, these approaches could not avert major accidents, on different scales, from happening as they negatively affect the industry. The purpose of this paper is to assess Generated Risk Event Effect Neutralization (GREEN) as a new tool to select suitable risk mitigation approach to prevent prospective failures in upstream industry. More than 200 hundred major accidents in the industry underwent GREEN evaluation and compared with existing risk mitigation approaches used in to mitigate eventual failures. Kuwait\u27s’ Mina Al-Ahmadi explosion was chosen as a case study to apply GREEN. The results of GREEN analyses were compared to both petroleum industry\u27s standards and best practices, as well as the evaluation from the design team at Kuwait\u27s Mina Al-Ahmadi to validate the result

Associated Risk in Utilizing Controlled Implosion to Securely Seal an Offshore Oil-Leaking Pipeline

This paper examines the potential risk of using controlled implosions as a new technique to securely seal an offshore leaking oil pipe. Massive amount of toxins and radioactive waste are produced by offshore oil leaks. These leaks can have negative impact on marine life and can threaten the stability of the ocean\u27s ecosystem. In the past few years, there were several oil leak accidents that had left an overwhelming impact. Identifying potential impact and consequences to the proposed risk mitigation technique, to both the environment and the surrounding infra structure, is crucial to emergency response and crisis management teams. In order to equally quantify and communicate the probable impact of the proposed controlled implosion technique, a one-to-five risk / consequence assessment scale was created. The optimal explosive configuration is being investigated by the Mining Engineering Department at Missouri S&T. Their research outcome, as well as this one, can potentially mitigate the damage of an offshore oil leak disaster in the future

Investigating New Risk Reduction and Mitigation in the Oil and Gas Industry

The complexity of the processes and the nature of volatile petroleum products urged the oil and gas industry to utilize various risk assessment techniques to identify potential failure modes that can interrupt operation processes. Consequently, government agencies and nonprofit professional societies guide the industry with regulatory guidelines, standards, and best recommended practices to oversee the operations management, assure safe working environment, and contain failures within tolerable limits. Yet, accidents due to electro-mechanical failures still occur and result in various consequences. Accordingly, critics have raised concerns about the petroleum industry\u27s safety and risk mitigation credentials and question its ability to prevent future major accidents. Therefore, new risk assessment tools need to be introduced to provide decision makers and novice engineers with a diverse perception of potential risks. The aim of this paper is verify the application of Risk in Early Design (RED), a product risk assessment tool, in identifying potential failures in the oil and gas industry. Approximately thirty major accident underwent the RED analysis to verify the software\u27s application to identify and rank potential failure modes

Safety Awareness: Identifying a Need for Undergraduate Engineering Students

In Brief: Students with technical majors must take scientific laboratory courses and many apply their knowledge by engaging in various competitive technical design teams. This requires them to spend time in labs and/or workshops, which can be hazardous environments. The survey reported on here examines the safety training exposure and knowledge among students on technical competition teams. Upon earning their degrees, these students will become practicing engineers and scientists. Their safety awareness and attitude toward risk is often being formed while in college and will follow them into their professional careers. Young engineering and science students often participate in technical design teams and class project teams during the academic year. At Missouri University of Science and Technology, Formula SAE race cars, ASCE Concrete Canoe, robotics competitions and aircraft designs are just a few examples of these opportunities (Student Design and Experiential Learning Center, 2014). To prepare for the competitions, students spend time in campus workshops where they encounter different types of hazardous and flammable materials, machines and other hazards. Similarly, students majoring in either engineering or science majors conduct lab experiments as part of their required academic curriculum. Because their safety training is often inadequate, these college students are exposed to numerous hazards. Over the past decade, concerns have grown about the frequency of academic laboratory incidents that have produced severe injuries and deaths. For example, a graduate student conducting a chemical lab at Texas Tech University lost three fingers, burned both his hands and face, and injured an eye in an explosion that destroyed the entire laboratory facility (CSB, 2010). A 23-year-old female student at UCLA died of second- and third-degree burns suffered while conducting a research experiment in a campus lab (Christensen, 2009). Another student died of asphyxiation due to neck compression when her hair caught in a lathe machine in Yale University’s workshop (Henderson, Rosenfeld & Serna, 2012). Four students from the University of Missouri-Columbia were severely injured during a hydrogen explosion in June 2010 (CSB, 2010). Two University of Maryland students suffered first- and second-degree chemical burns as a result of a chemical explosion attributed to improper waste management (Kemsley, 2009). Investigation reports of these incidents cite causes such as improper safety procedures, lack of training, improper training documentation and not wearing PPE (Kemsley, 2009). These events suggest that college students lack minimum safety awareness and training in safe work habits

STAMP - Holistic System Safety Approach or Just Another Risk Model?

Risk management has a number of accident causation models that have been used for a number of years. Dr. Nancy Leveson (2002) has developed a new model of accidents using a systems approach. The new model is called Systems Theoretic Accident Modeling and Processes (STAMP). It incorporates three basic components: constraints, hierarchical levels of control, and process loops. In this model, accidents are examined in terms of why the controls that were in place did not prevent or detect the hazard(s) and why these controls were not adequate to enforcing the system safety constraints. A STAMP accident analysis is presented and its usefulness in evaluating system safety is compared to more traditional risk models. STAMP is applied to a case study in the oil and gas industry to demonstrate both practicality and validity of the model. The model successfully identified both direct and indirect violations against existing safety constraints that resulted in the accident at each level of the organization