(71aw) Safety-Centered Site Master Planning

<align="center">ABSTRACT   Safety-Centered Site Master Planning for Refineries and Chemical Plants l JACOBS l Advance Planning Group l September 30, 2014

A Holistic, Multi-discipline Approach to a Common Challenge

In this presentation you will learn the basics of safety-centered master site planning, why it’s important, the background leading to today’s challenges, and tips on sound safety-centered planning solutions.  We will show you the primary benefits of

1. Improved Safety Metrics

2. Optimization of Plant Layout, and

3. Proactive Loss Mitigation

Using real world experience and case studies we will examine the key benefits of planning for safety and typical challenges to mitigation.  

Why is safety-centered master site planning important?

All of us care about the safety of the people that work at our refineries and chemical plants.   Safety is simply good business.  The potential cost in money and lives of a process safety incident can be catastrophic.  It is important to recognize the risks posed to nearby occupied buildings to reduce injury and loss of life.  A thoughtful, well planned site master plan reduces risk to people while improving operational efficiency.  

The Common Challenge at Most Processing Plants

Tragedies, such as the 2005 explosion at the BP Texas City Refinery, focus greater attention on the risk of locating non-essential personnel near processing units.  Regulatory requirements and industry best practices are currently evolving to respond to the inherent safety challenges at refineries. OHSA and the American Petroleum Institute have been leaders in this evolution by updating key documents related to occupied buildings within these plants. 

Successful safety-centered master plans seek the proper balance between safety and productivity. Trade-offs can often be identified and quantified to find the best balance of these critical factors.  Other more routine planning factors are still important but are secondary in safety-centered planning.  Factors such as security, environmental protection, and quality workplace environment also contribute to the business of safe and efficient production of chemical and petroleum products.

The key goal of safety-centered is to eliminate the risk posed to occupied buildings, including trailers, that expose employees by virtue of their location, to potential hazards such as fires, explosions, overpressures, exposure to toxic or corrosive materials.   

How Did We Get Here?

Very few plants were constructed entirely in one phase.  In fact, most refineries are victims of the effects of incremental growth over time.  Most were started as an initial phase of processing units with nearby support buildings. These support buildings include shops, field offices, shipping/receiving, and other buildings to house people that typically do not work directly on the units.  This incremental growth often created a problem when many of the existing buildings were not relocated to safer sites, despite the fact that these buildings were subjected to additional risk from the new process units. As a result, many support buildings are now located in high-risk areas. 

The problem is made worse by the natural mental conditioning of personnel working in these embedded support buildings.  Occupants tend to believe that there must be a good reason for the building’s location because “that’s the way it has always been”.  As a result, employees grow somewhat de-sensitized to the risk.  A safety-centered approach locates these personnel away from the hazards of the process.  The cultural changes that accompany the relocation should be described and addressed as a part of the future plan.  

Measurable Results and Desired Outcomes

The science of risk identification and quantification has advanced to include projections of blast overpressure, toxic vapor, thermal radiation, building damage levels, occupant vulnerability, and societal risk. Both consequence-based and quantitative based risk can be calculated from any number of possible release scenarios.  The American Petroleum Institute (API) developed standards API 752 and API 753 to describe standards for assessing and quantifying risk factors.

Risk mitigation is the primary goal of a safety-centered master plan.  Measurable improvements in productivity and safety begin with good baseline metrics for both risk and production. Detailed scientific risk assessments performed by process safety professionals are the standard for assessing the current state of plant safety and its potential for improvement.  

Key Goals of a Safety-Centered Site Master Plan

Each safety-centered master plan should have a clear vision of its goals:

• Address the uniqueness of each Plant
• Achieve an incident-and injury-free workplace by mitigating significant workplace health risks through good facility siting
• Achieve compliance with current facility siting regulations (OSHA, API 752, Company Specific)
• Decrease the potential for loss of life, lost production and non-compliance fines
• Balance safety with excellence in productivity, operational efficiency and sustainability
• Increase operational efficiency through optimized functional relationships
• Eliminate wasted production time caused by necessary movement between fragmented facility locations
• Promote “Industry Best Practices” related to security, environmental protection and a quality workplace
• Create a framework that can operate with integrity and reliability by using natural resources and assets in an efficient, logical and sustainable manner
• Aim for enduring legacy despite short-term priorities of the business environment
• Achieve the best outcome by encouraging our clients to explore new ways of thinking and by embracing change

Select appropriate support building sites and types of construction based on process risk.  Typical Non-Process Facilities that are needed include:

• Administration
• Shops
• Warehouses / Shipping + Receiving
• Laboratories
• Change Rooms
• Fire House / Emergency Operations Centers
• Guard Houses / Security Buildings
• Field Offices

Key Issues:

Key issues are discovered at each unique plant, but there are also a number of repeating issues that seem to occur at most locations:

• Lack of a comprehensive, refinery-wide land and facility management strategy
• Facilities too close to hazards
• Reactive facility siting,
• Trailers used as permanent facilities for overflow
• Lack of investment in employees and their workplace
• Compliance with current regulations
• Community Issues
• Land Use Strategy
• Fragmented operations
• Facility Management
• People Management
• Transportation
• Environmental
• Emergency Operations

Each of these key issues are addressed as part of our holistic, multi-discipline approach to this important planning.  The planning principles used in safety-centered master planning are applied based on experience planning in these environments.      

Benefits of Performing a Safety-Centered Site Master Plan

A well conducted safety-centered master plan will benefit petroleum and chemical clients as follows:

Improved Safety Metrics

• Fewer people working in areas of high risk.
• Fewer high damage level occupied buildings.
• Reduction in societal risk due to overpressure, toxic vapor, and radiant heat.
• Increased use of blast/vapor/thermal resistant buildings built for purpose for essential personnel that must work in areas of risk.

Optimization of Plant Layout ·

• A framework for future growth or change.
• Improved security and traffic flows by segregating different types of traffic.
• Close but safe location for support buildings like administration, warehouse, lab, etc.
• Well-conceived plan for the added traffic and people during turnarounds and capital projects without affecting ongoing operations.
• Land acquisition strategy to handle expansion or create buffers to nearby neighbors, if needed.
• Potential for inside the fence process expansion area by relocating unsafe embedded existing buildings.

Proactive Loss Mitigation

• Reduced liability to the company and individuals for loss of life, fines, and shut-downs caused by an incident.
• Compliance with industry best practices regarding non-process facility siting.
• The preparation of a safety-centered master plan may be evidence of good faith efforts to mitigate risk before a major incident.