Page 129 - CW E-Magazine (17-12-2024)

Point of View

Process safety management in India is a glass half full

In chemical process industry everything – material, machine or man – has potential to cause incident or accident, unfortunately in that
order. The impacts can be deadly, as brought home by the Bhopal Gas disaster, which 40 years on remains the worst industrial accident
the world has ever seen. Though there have been no accidents of similar severity since, smaller ones do take place world-over, not to
mention the many, many more near-misses. All this has led to an erosion of public faith in the chemical industry, notwithstanding the fact
that the industry is not optional, but vital.

While accidents in the chemical industry can happen for several reasons, process-related causes top the list. But following Bhopal,
an extensive body of work has been put together addressing all aspects of chemical process safety. To highlight the progress made,
and to reiterate that the task can never be complete, the US-based Centre for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), part of the American
Institute of Chemical Engineers, organised its 8 Global Summit on Process Safety in Mumbai recently (a report on the event will follow
th
in a forthcoming issue). The well-attended event came to India for the second time, after ten years – this time at a much larger scale in
terms of numbers of companies and personnel attending, and scope of subjects addressed.

The need for Process Safety Management
The pursuit of higher temperature, higher pressure, and higher efficiency in the chemical process industry has led to more complex
operations and more potential safety hazards. Process Safety Management (PSM) is a broad discipline, encompassing a mix of operational
skills, engineering & design features, and management of systems, that aims at prevention of release of highly hazardous chemicals that
may result in a fire, explosion or a toxic gas exposure, while handling, using, storing or manufacturing a chemical.

It is a journey that needs a relentless focus on continuous improvement, and entails assessing and enhancing safety processes and
protocols to ensure efficacy and relevance, and to stay abreast with technological improvements. It uses safety audits to identify potential
hazards within a process, and safety committees to facilitate the discovery and implementation of safety enhancements. Recent advances
in process safety have come about by the adoption of new technologies in instruments, scale-up of computational capacity, and through
the adoption of a data-driven approach, amongst others.

Safety starts at the top
It is a cliché to say that safety needs to be one of a company’s core values and given at least equal importance as other values like
production, quality, customer service and profitability. Safety must be integral to the way business is conducted – not an afterthought –
and operating discipline has to reflect the safety behaviour of everyone in the company. It starts at the top or doesn’t start at all – and
the stronger it is, the better the response and performance of the rest of the organisation. As working safely is part of everyone’s job,
effective training must be targeted to the needs of the individuals at each organisational level and include something for everyone Senior
management should be seen in the field practicing what it is trying to preach.

Inherently safer processes
A systematic approach to process safety improvement requires proactively searching for opportunities to improve safety at every step,
not simply identifying deficiencies after an undesired event. Inherent safety is a vital approach to safety that focuses on eliminating or reducing
the hazards associated with a set of conditions. An inherently safer plant uses the elimination of hazards to prevent accidents, rather
than depending on control systems, interlocks, redundancy, special management systems, complex operating instructions, or elaborate
procedures. Inherently safer plants are tolerant of errors; are generally cost-effective; and are simpler, easier to operate, and more reliable.

To cite one example, MIC (methyl isocyanate) – the gas that leaked from a storage tank on the fateful night in Bhopal – is now made
and consumed in situ – obviating the need for its storage and removing the possibility of accidental release. Likewise for phosgene, widely
used for making several low- and high-volume isocyanates.

It must, however, be stressed that an ‘inherently safer’ process should not be considered ‘inherently safe’ or ‘absolutely safe.’ While
implementing inherent safety concepts will move a process in the direction of reduced risk, it will not remove all risks.

Understanding the chemistry
Understanding of reactive chemistry – what goes on inside the reactor – is key to better process safety. Today, thanks to fundamental
understanding of chemical processes and advanced instrumentation, there is far better understanding of, say, exothermic and polymerisation

Chemical Weekly December 17, 2024 129

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