Current status and challenges of the process safety practices in Malaysia

摘要

Malaysia, being a developing country marching towards industrialization in 2020 has successfully attracted many multinational companies to invest in high technology industries particularly in oil and gas, chemical and petrochemicals. These process technologies bring along inherent process risks. In Malaysia, we have several fire and explosions at methanol plant in Seberang Prai (2004), Pasir Gudang oil Terminal (2006), Labuan Terminal (2007) and Tanjung Langsat Terminal (2008). In this paper, a comprehensive literature review on the implementation of Process Safety Management (PSM) in chemical process industry (CPI) is made and compared with the PSM practices in Malaysia. Process Safety Management (PSM) is the application of Management Systems to the identification, understanding, and control of process hazards to prevent process-related injuries and incidents. The study revealed the level of PSM implementation in Malaysia is premature. Only several chemical process plants are practicing PSM because this is integrated into process design to meet the licensor standards and the demand of underwriter. With increasing number of chemical process plants established in the country, Malaysia has to uplift the safety standards from Occupational, Safety and Health Act (OSHA) to PSM to prevent heavy losses in lives, properties and environmental damaged. As a start, the Government must have the foresight and action plan to build up a preventive culture in safety which emphasizes safety at design stage.