The Lifecycle Approach to Hazard Management

Abstract

Introduction The Cullen report into the Piper Alpha disaster recommended a change from prescriptive legislation to a goal setting approach. The new legislative approach is described in Ref (1). The preparation of the regulations covering fire, explosion and emergency response Ref. (2) which would support the Safety Case coincided with an initiative by UKOOA, the United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association, to develop guidance on hazard based design to protect against fires and explosions. Agreement was reached with the UK Health and Safety Executive and the drilling and design contractors to work together to develop it into the technical guidance to support the new regulations. This set a precedent for UK offshore safety legislation. Previously, the regulators had developed, and had been the custodians of such guidance. It also marked a new era in positive co-operation between the "ruler and the ruled". The UKOOA Fire and Explosion Hazard Management (FEHM) guide Ref. (3) is the product of that initiative. Initially, the authors set out to prepare guidance for designers of fire and explosion protection systems to encourage them to specify systems to match hazards. It soon became apparent that there was no overall guidance describing an integrated approach for managing hazards. The result was the development of the lifecycle hazard management concept. This paper outlines the lifecycle and highlights the main features of a risk management system which is based upon it. The approach can be applied not only to fires and explosions but to all major accident hazards including these involving toxins or pollution. Aims of Integrated Lifecycle Hazard Management The guide suggests the following aims for hazard management:–overall risks from all major accidents should be assessed, and be "as low as reasonably practicable" (ALARP);–all major accident hazards should be identified, analysed and understood;–an appropriate combination of prevention, detection, control and mitigation systems should be implemented and maintained for each hazard throughout the lifecycle of the installation;–the design, operation and maintenance of the systems should be undertaken by competent staff who understand their responsibilities in the management of the hazards;–any changes to the installation which may effect the likelihood or consequences of major accident hazards should be identified, assessed and the systems revised to take them into account as necessary. The FEHM guide is not the first to use the lifecycle concept. It has been presented at previous SPE conferences; Ref (4) and is used in other guidance for electrical control systems; Ref. (5). These were used as the starting point but were only considered to make general statements. If an industry with a deeply ingrained prescriptive culture is to accept and use the hazard based approach, it needs detailed guidance. The result is the lifecycle with twenty two clearly defined steps shown in Figure 1 rather than ten or twelve high level statements. Achieving the aim is discussed in the remainder of the paper. Hazard Assessment; Prove it's Safe or Make it Safe? Hazard assessment can be reactive or proactive. If the primary objective of a Safety Case is seen as demonstrating that risks are both below a target figure and "as low as is reasonably practical", then the assessment is likely to be dominated by statistical and probabilistic analyses. P. 567