7 May Process Start-up is a Dangerous Time (again) Following a problem in the process start-up, styrene gas was released at a chemical, plant in India. At least 13 people have died and nearly 1,000 have fallen sick after a cloud of toxic styrene gas leaked out of an Indian industrial plant in the small hours of Thursday morning. Distressing images on social media … Read More
2 May Nearly thirty years since Piper Alpha Disaster – HSE warn about hydrocarbon releases Many of the big oil company disasters (such as Piper Alpha, or Texas City Refinery, or CAPECO) arise because of loss of containment of a highly flammable material (oil, gas, hydrocarbon, etc). If the release finds a source of ignition, then a fire/explosion will result and people killed or harmed, and property and companies are … Read More
26 April Process Safety (updated April 2018) On the morning of the last day of two weeks of intensive training in the Middle East (last year) on the subject of Process Safety I happen to read the following article from IOSH: Process safety neglected in board discussions The two weeks have included a lot of interesting process safety discussions on technical topics such … Read More