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TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION
1. Purpose
Safety and HSE are overriding considerations for all activities related to the Beet Sugar Factory Project
and conforming to the company’s HSE policy and complying to the country’s regulations are hence key
elements to reduce project’s HSE risks to an as low as reasonably practicable level (ALARP), in terms of
likelihood of occurrence and associated potential consequences, with a goal of zero incidents.
Personnel safety along with environment protection shall remain top-priority in making decisions
involving design options, construction procedures and facilities operation.
To do so, Safety systems and associated equipment shall be designed and technical safety studies will be
carried out at an early stage to assure the project will be conducted in an inherently safe basis.
The purpose of the present document is to provide an overall description of the scope of work to be
performed by EPPM.
2. Definitions
For the purpose of this document, the following definitions and abbreviations will apply:
3. Abbreviations
4. Standards
OSHA
Major Requirements Of OSHA’s Respiratory Protection Standard 29 Cfr
1910.134
Regarding that explosive atmospheres may be generated by the different activities of the plant
(combustible dusts mainly), area classification should be performed in order to prevent the damaging
effects that a potential explosion can have (personnel injuries and/ or loss of life and serious equipment
damage).
The classification should be in accordance with the International Standard IEC 60079-10-1.
The different areas where hazardous explosive atmospheres may occur will then be classified into zones
depending on the likelihood of an explosive atmosphere to occur and its persistence.
The main objective of this classification is to protect each hazardous zone from ignition sources which
can be assured by the proper selection of the equipment used in the process: Electrical equipment for use
in hazardous areas shall conform to IEC-60079 and shall be ATEX certified by a recognized testing
authority (such as KEMA, BASEEFA, PTB… etc).
The extent of each zone should be delineated in accordance with API RP 505. The extent of an area is
three dimensional and is defined as the distance in any direction from the source of release to the point
where the flammable mixture has been sufficiently diluted by air to a level below the LEL
2. Preliminary Hazard Identification
A preliminary hazard analysis will be performed to identify the main Hazards likely to arise from the
different activities of the plant.
This PHA will be providing an important early input to setting safety requirements and serving as a
guidance to the Project Safety Management Plan.
The hazard identification performed in the preliminary engineering phase will provide an initial assessment
of hazards and identify possible controls and follow on actions to eliminate or mitigate them.
Since this study will be carried out at an early phase of the project life cycle where only PFDs are available,
the analysis will be done in a broad way, by station.
An inductive, or top down, approach will be used to develop this PHA: Top level events (hazards) are
initially identified, followed by what might have caused them, and then by a determination of their
potential effect on the total system.
The methodology to be employed during the preparation of this PHA can be summarized as follows:
Identification of the hazards associated with the Project;
Analysis of identified hazardous events consequences;
Qualitative estimation of the likelihood of the identified events (in accordance with the company’s
risk matrix);
Qualitative assessment of the hazards’ impact on the personnel, the assets and the environment(in
accordance with the company’s risk matrix);
Recommend risk protection measures, if necessary;
Qualitatively determine the residual.
The PHA will be implemented during a workshop (brainstorming) where a multidisciplinary team will be
present to ensure all aspects of the plant and its operations are covered.
The sugar beet industry may present risky situations and generate serious emergencies, therefore, an
Emergency Management Plan should be established to effectively manage emergency response operations.
The response to any emergency within the sphere of ALKHALEEJ SUGAR BEET FACTORY’s
operations will be directed towards:
Saving life and care for the injured personnel;
Protection of the Environment;
Limitation of damage to property and assets;
Protection of Company’s reputation and assurance of operations continuity.
The ERP will constitute, by this, a detailed step-by-step guide for the emergency response team from the
initiating action being an alarm to the final response action to be activated.
4. Safety and fire protection philosophy
The purpose of this document is to define the overall health, safety and environment design basis and
principles as an aid to collating HSE issues and aspects into various discipline engineering design,
philosophies and design criteria. Potential relative hazards are thus identified, and risks are mitigated.
The report will also outline the fire protection system to be implemented in the plant.
All safety aspects will, thus, be treated in this HSE philosophy.
5. Layout Review
Most of the process units of this sugar beet plant are vulnerable to accidents such as fires and explosions
which can cause severe damage to humans, environment and assets. To prevent domino effects and
escalation of a potential accident from one process unit to another, a layout review shall be conducted to
optimize the general layout of the plant and assure an inherent safety the whole plant with the objective to
eliminate the hazard altogether.
Numerous factors should be respected when designing the plant layout from which we can cite:
The need to keep distances for transfer of materials between the plant’s different units to a
minimum to reduce costs and risks;
Interaction with existing or planned facilities on site such as existing roadways, drainage and
utilities routings;
The need for plant operability and maintainability;
The need to locate hazardous materials facilities as far as possible from site boundaries and
people living in the local neighborhood;
The need to prevent confinement where release of flammable substances may occur;
The need to provide access for emergency services;
The need to provide emergency escape routes for on-site personnel…
This preliminary plant layout review allows to identify the main safety constraints to be considered in the
engineering phase to prevent cost of subsequent changes.