HAZARD IDENTIFICATION & RISK ASSESSMENT FOR OFFSHORE GAS PRODUCTION PLATFORMS

Abstract

Safety is one of the most important factors in any industry or activity. It is concerned with personnel safety, protects process equipment against damage and ensures minimum process interruptions. The aim of this work is to demonstrate various ways of carrying out hazard analysis in one of the petroleum industries namely; offshore gas production platforms, through applying hazard identification and risk assessment methods to one of the existing platforms located at Abu Qir with reference to the way in which major accidents develop and the relationship between hazard and risk. Recommendations are then obtained for how hazards or risks could be eliminated or practically minimized. In other words, this study aims to achieve the following: I. Improvement of general offshore platform safety. 2. Achievement of safe working environment for operators. 3. Prevention of hazardous process deviations. 4. Prevention of production losses. 5. Providing general and operating safety precautions. 6. Providing what to do in case of emergency situations. 7. Providing checks on the fire fighting equipment. 8. Providing checks on the cause and effect of the logic matrix. 9. Providing checks on the escape means and routes. Ten methods of hazard identification and risk assessment are used in this study and resulted in 157 recommendations including four types, which are checks, operational procedures, design modifications and further studies. These recommendations are divided into three categories depending on their importance, which are mandatory, optional and additional recommendations. An economic analysis is conducted to illustrate the cost benefit from applying this safety study and its recommendations. Only the mandatory recommendations arc included in the economic analysis, as they are greatly recommended to increase the safety level on the gas production platform. The economic analysis has found that: I. The expenditure of a relatively small amount of money($ 60,000) to implement the mandatory recommendations involving process control and general safety precautions can result in a significantly cost saving. 2. This amount of money ($• 60,000) can result in the protection of an overall offshore platform of total cost of($ 40,000,000) and recovery or repair cost of($ 17,500,000) in addition to the loss of production for at least 60 days, (which is the required time for repair). 3. Assuming a failure frequency rate of 0.000 I per year and a service life of 20 years, the cost of all mandatory recommendations is nearly equal half the actual money lost due to platform failure.