3151 A framework for the use of key performance indicators of major hazards in petroleum refining

Overview:

Essential reading for SHE managers, refinery operators, process safety engineers, government agencies and other stakeholders in the petroleum refining industry or kindred major hazard process industries.

The Energy Institute, on behalf of the UK Petroleum Industry Association (UKPIA), commissioned the investigation detailed in this Research Report. It reflects a shift in focus from occupational safety onto process safety as a better basis for indicating the safety performance of sites with major hazards potential.

Specifically, this Research Report describes the analysis and interpretation of incidents from UK petroleum refineries that had at least a minimal potential to escalate to major hazards. Their causes are benchmarked against dangerous occurrence potential incidents and actual major hazard incidents drawn from databases and analysed using, where possible, the same methodology. This has been used to test the correlation between their respective causes, and to consider appropriate key performance indicators (KPIs) that could be used to provide a measure of major hazards in the petroleum refining industry.

The proposals include a short KPI that focuses on the 11 most frequent causes of actual incidents to determine whether adequate precautions are being taken to minimise them, and a long KPI that covers a more extensive list of causes and also items on management, design, maintenance and inspection responsibilities. As the proposed KPIs are substantially different to those proposed in a more general cross-industry study,, the Report details the reasons for the differences.