Identifying Opportunities of Enhancing Safeguard Stewardship through IPL Rationalization

摘要

Ensuring effective safeguard stewardship is an integral part of the journey to address the challenge of moving from 'I think’ to ‘I know’ that a major accident hazard is managed. One of the steps in achieving effectiveness is to ensure that the process design is robust and that the safeguards provide the necessary protection to reduce the process risk. Process Hazard Analysis and Layer of Protection Analysis are carried out to identify hazards, determine the potential consequence and evaluate the adequacy of the safeguards. Opportunities for further risk reduction are identified and risks are eliminated or reduced through established risk management programs. Though the study methodologies have been used for decades, there are opportunities for improvement. This paper specifically addresses the opportunities in the evaluation of safeguards during the design of major capital projects. It explores some of the key concerns including lack of independence and variations in modifier application that could lead to over or under engineering; this could in turn may result in increased risk exposure. Additionally, this paper explains how the use of a defined methodology for the rationalization of Independent Protection Layers can assist in overcoming these challenges. The significance of performing IPL rationalization at appropriate stage of engineering progress is key in ensuring effective safeguards through design. A comparison of the advantages of rationalization exercise performed at various project phases is also discussed in the paper.