Shell Oil Spill in Nigeria could be the worst spill in a decade
Dec 22, 2011, Lagos- A large oil spill from Shell’s Bonga oil field, which is about 75 miles off the coast of Nigeria, is reportedly the worst such spill reported in a decade, say news reports. Reports vary of how large the spill is, from some reports saying it has affected 115 miles of ocean to other more severe ones, saying it is at least 320 square miles large. Shell estimates that about 40,000 barrels of oil may have leaked into the ocean. The entire Bonga oil field was shut down as a safety precaution.
The oil spill apparently occurred due to a rupture in a flexible export pipeline running from an FPSO in the Bonga field to an oil tanker. (FPSO is an acronym used in the Oil & Gas industry for Floating Production Storage and Offtake vessels).
The source of the leak has been plugged, said Peter Ibador, head of the Nigerian National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, say news reports.
But the spill has started moving towards to coast and poses a serious threat to the environment, adversely affecting birds, fish and other marine life. Experts from Britain have been called to help, as have been Nigerian naval ships who have been pressed into action to help with the cleanup. Infra red equiopment is being used to find out places where the sheen is thicker and dispersants are being used to clear it up.
Shell now says that about 50% of the oil has already been dissipated or evaporated, though a rainbow like sheen can still be seen on the ocean’s surface.
OSHA announces winners of “Picture It: Safe Workplaces for Everyone” photo contest
Dec 01, 2011, WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) today announced the winners of its first ever photo contest to raise public awareness of occupational safety and health.
In celebration of its 40th anniversary, OSHA held the Picture It!: Safe Workplaces for Everyone photo contest. The contest challenged anyone with a passion for photography to capture an image of workplace safety and health and share it with OSHA. At the same time, OSHA held a second contest challenging OSHA staff to submit their images of workplace safety and health. Some of the photographs are shown below.
This is the first prize winning one. It shows workers on a beach cleaning up after the infamous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It was submitted by Aaron Sussell, Cincinnati, Ohio.
The one below got the second prize.
This one below got the third prize, it shows a machine shop operator working on a machine using proper personal protective equipment.
The one below shows a gas monitor being used for entering a confined space and it clearly shows the expected reading before one would enter. This one got an honorable mention.
All the six winning photographs, and seven honorable mentions, can be viewed at http://www.osha.gov/osha40/photo-winners.html.
“I am thrilled by the way these photographers have so creatively captured the challenges of workplace safety and health,” said Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, expressing his enthusiasm for the overwhelming response to the contest and the quality of the submissions. “Each winning photograph tells its own powerful story of the contribution of workers to our great country’s success, and America, and of the vital importance of protecting their health and safety. I am deeply grateful to everyone who contributed their time and talent to this contest.”
Aaron Sussell, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was selected from more than three hundred submissions as the first-place winner of the public contest for his compelling photograph of workers involved in last summer’s cleanup of the Gulf Oil Spill. “This is a great captured moment that tells the story of workplace safety,” said Kathleen Klech, Photography Director, Condé Nast Traveler Magazine and Photo Contest judge.
Second-place winner Roberto Carlos Vergara, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was lauded for the otherworldly display of light and shadow in his photograph; set high above the clouds, the photograph emphasizes the importance of the fall protection equipment that each worker in the frame wears. Roberto Rodriguez of Mesquite, Texas, placed third for his image of a worker safely operating a machine in the midst of a visually active factory floor.
The winner of the OSHA staff contest is Elena Finizio, who works in OSHA’s Braintree, Massachusetts Area Office. Ms. Finizio’s photograph of the eerie glow of molten metal as workers pour a casting was praised for its “visual drama” by photojournalist and contest judge Earl Dotter. Steve Baranowski, also of OSHA’s Braintree, Massachusetts Area Office, was awarded second place in the internal contest for his vivid portrayal of an OSHA compliance officer at work. Frank Wenzel of the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries placed third for his dizzying image of wind turbine construction.
Several honorable mentions were also awarded to photographers whose work will be featured on the contest Web page. They are Koralie Hill of Oakland, California; Roy Berke of Sacramento, California; Paul Navarette of Riverside, California; Wally Reardon of Pulaski, New York; and Jorge Intriago of Columbia, South Carolina from the public contest; and Keith Tsubata of the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations and McClelland Davis of the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries from the OSHA staff.
The winners will receive framed certificates from Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis (first prize) and Dr. Michaels (second and third prizes). All six winning photographs will be framed and hung in the Department of Labor’s headquarters at the Frances Perkins Building in Washington, D.C., where they will serve as daily reminders of the real-life impacts of OSHA’s mission. Winners were selected by an expert panel of judges that included Mr. Dotter; Carl Fillichio, the Department of Labor’s Senior Advisor for Communications and Public Affairs; Kathleen Klech, photography director for Condé Nast Traveler magazine; and Shawn Moore, the chief photographer for the Department of Labor. OSHA extends its thanks to these judges for their generosity and their critical expertise.
This contest was a great way to improve awareness of industrial safety amongst the public at large.
Fieldbus and Safety Instrumented Systems-implementing Safety Instrumented Functions in Fieldbus
Miami Dec 19, 2011- There has been a lot of buzz lately about Safety Instrumented Systems utilizing Fieldbus technology, or rather having Fieldbus systems also have Safety Instrumented System functionality. As those of you in the process industries probably know, Safety Instrumented Systems are special automation and control systems that ensure that plants having hazardous processes will be adequately protected and can be shut down safely in case of any process upsets or untoward incidents. Safety Instrumented Systems protect people, assets and the environment, in case of unwanted deviations, failures of the main process control system or equipment and other undesirable and unplanned events. Safety Instrumented Systems (known as SIS for short) are also called by other names such as Safety Shutdown Systems, Emergency Shutdown Systems (ESD) and similar terms.
Till recently, the SIS and the main plant automation systems (also known as BPCS-Basic Process Control Systems, which could be DCS or PLC based systems) used to be completely separate systems. The hardware, software and programming of both systems (BPCS and SIS) used to be totally different, like chalk and cheese. Later on, we began to see the introduction of integrated BPCS-SIS systems, where the BPCS and SIS were not totally different, but shared some of the hardware, user interface, communications network, etc. Though the programming was similar, the SIS programming was kept secure and separate with the aid of special functions in software.
Now we are seeing an even more integrated approach, in Fieldbus systems. For example FOUNDATION Fieldbus (which is one of the many Fieldbus protocols in use today) has introduced special Safety Instrumented Functions, that could be implemented in FOUNDATION Fieldbus based systems. They call this FF-SIF and this concept was presented in the FOUNDATION Fieldbus general assemby held sometime back. It is being done in a pilot project in Saudi Aramco at their Dhahran site. FOUNDATION Fieldbus recently announced that updated device development solutions for its Foundation Fieldbus for Safety Instrumented Functions (FF-SIF) technology are available. The new release includes the FF-SIF Technical Specification, Foundation for SIF Interoperability Test Kit (SIF ITK), and DD Library.
As many of you know, Fieldbus technology is rapidly gaining ground in the process industries and if the FF-SIF concept is accepted by user industries, it will lend a new meaning to the word “integrated” BPCS-SIS. In fact the distinction will get blurred. What FF-SIF proposes is to have Safety Instrumented Function blocks that will be resident in the smart devices in the field (like a humble pressure transmitter for instance) and thus can be used to implement Safety functions.This means that plants who decide to implement Fieldbus even on a smaller scale can have the power of a Safety Instrumented System, without paying a steep price for creating a separate system, programming, wiring, etc,etc. All they have to do is to utilize the SIF blocks that will presumably be available. Since the user industries main aim is to implement Safety functions in an effective manner, this seems to be a good deal for them.
If all this sounds like being too complicated, you need not worry. Simply download the Fieldbus training course from Abhisam Software that we hear is being released in Q1 of 2012 and you will be fine, fully updated and conversant with all this new technology.
Introduction to Functional Safety and Safety Integrity Level (SIL)
UPDATE: The upcoming next batch is on 6th Feb 2012 in Mumbai, at Hotel Kohinoor Continental. Contact Abhisam Software to enroll.
Mumbai, Sep 01, 2011- Abhisam Software informs us that they have arranged an introductory course in Functional Safety on 26th Sep 2011 in Mumbai at Hotel Kohinoor Continental, Andheri near the airport. The course will cover everything related to Functional Safety at an introductory level. It will answer key questions that are asked by many engineers and safety professionals in relation to Safety Integrity Level (SIL) and Functional Safety.
These are:
- What is Hazard and Risk?
- What is Functional Safety?
- What does SIL mean?
- Is SIL 3 better than SIL 2?
- What are the IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 standards?
- What SIL applies to my plant, instrument or location?
- How can I get my products “SIL compliant?
- What are Safety Instrumented Systems?
- What do you mean by a “SIL Study”?
These and many other questions will be answered by Dr. Michel Houtermans, the world’s leading expert on Functional Safety and SIL.
This training program is something that is useful to Instrumentation & Control System manufacturers, system integrators, engineering consultants, electrical and instrument contractors as well as users in the process industries such as Oil & Gas, Petroleum, Chemicals, Fertilizers, Power and similar industries that utilize complex safety and emergency shutdown systems to keep their plants, people and the environment safe. It will also be of interest to regulatory authorities who supervise these industries.
For more details please contact Abhisam Software .
Du Pont accidents in Belle West Virginia- CSB releases report
July 07, 2011 Charleston,W.Va- The US Chemical Safety Board has released a report on the recent spate of accidents at the Du Pont facility in Belle, W.Va that says that these accidents resulted from numerous safety deficiencies including lack of safe equipment design, ineffective mechanical integrity programs, and incomplete investigations of previous near misses.
A series of preventable safety shortcomings — including failure to maintain the mechanical integrity of a critical phosgene hose — led to a string of three serious accidents that occurred over a 33-hour period on January 22 and 23, 2010, at the DuPont Corporation’s Belle, West Virginia, chemical manufacturing plant, according to the draft report of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) which was issued today. In one of the accidents, a worker died following exposure to phosgene, a gas used as a chemical weapon in World War I.
The report makes numerous safety recommendations. Among them, DuPont is urged to enclose all of its phosgene production and storage areas so that any releases of phosgene will be contained. The CSB recommends that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) update its compressed gas safety standard to include secondary enclosures for toxic gases such as phosgene.
The draft report and recommendations remain subject to change and final approval by a vote of the presidentially-appointed board of the CSB. That vote is expected to occur following a 45-day comment period which closes on August 22.
DuPont’s Belle facility occupies more than 700 acres along the Kanawha River, eight miles east of Charleston, the state capital. The plant produces a variety of specialty chemicals.
The series of accidents began on January 22, 2010, when an alarm sounded leading operators to discover that 2,000 pounds of methyl chloride, a flammable gas, had been leaking unnoticed into the atmosphere for five days. The next morning, workers discovered a leak in a pipe carrying oleum, producing a fuming cloud of the sulfur trioxide. The phosgene release occurred later that day, and the exposed worker died the next day in a hospital.
CSB Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso said the three accidents particularly concerned CSB personnel given DuPont’s longstanding reputation for a commitment to safety. Noting the company started as a gunpowder manufacturer in 1802, and became a major chemical producer within 100 years, Dr. Moure-Eraso said, “DuPont has had a stated focus on accident prevention since its early days. Over the years, DuPont management worked to drive the injury rate down to zero through improved safety practices.”
Dr. Moure-Eraso continued, “DuPont became recognized across industry as a safety innovator and leader. We at the CSB were therefore quite surprised and alarmed to learn that DuPont had not just one but three accidents that occurred over a 33-hour period in January 2010.
CSB board member and former chairman John Bresland also spoke at the news conference: “These kinds of findings would cause us great concern in any chemical plant – but particularly in DuPont with its historically strong work and safety culture. In light of this, I would hope that DuPont officials are examining the safety culture company-wide.”
Member Bresland noted the CSB finding that the phosgene hose that burst in front of a worker was supposed to be changed out at least once a month. But the hose that failed had been in service for seven months. Furthermore, the CSB found the type of hose involved in the accident was susceptible to corrosion from phosgene.
Team Lead Johnnie Banks said, “Documents obtained during the CSB investigation showed that as far back as 1987 DuPont officials realized the hazards of using the braided stainless steel hoses lined with Teflon, or PTFE. An expert employed at DuPont recommended the use of hoses lined with Monel, a strong metal alloy used in highly corrosive conditions. The DuPont official stated: ‘Admittedly, the Monel hose will cost more than its stainless counterpart. However, with proper construction and design so that stresses are minimized…useful life should be much greater than 3 months. Costs will be less in the long run and safety will also be improved.’”
In fact, the Monel hose was never used.
Internal DuPont documents released with the CSB draft report indicate that in the 1980’s, company officials considered increasing the safety of the area of the plant where phosgene is handled by enclosing the area and venting the enclosure through a scrubber system to destroy any toxic phosgene gas before it entered the atmosphere. However, the documents show the company calculated the benefit ratio of potential lives saved compared to the cost and decided not to make the safety improvements. A DuPont employee wrote in 1988, “It may be that in the present circumstances the business can afford $2 million for an enclosure; however, in the long run can we afford to take such action which has such a small impact on safety and yet sets a precedent for all highly toxic material activities?”
The need for an enclosure was reiterated in a 2004 process hazard analysis conducted by DuPont, but four extensions were granted by DuPont management between 2004 and 2009, and at the time of the January 2010 release, no safety enclosure or scrubber system had been constructed. CSB investigators concluded that an enclosure, scrubber system, and routine requirement for protective breathing equipment before personnel entered the enclosure would have prevented any personnel exposures or injuries.
The CSB investigation found common deficiencies in DuPont Belle plant management systems springing from all three accidents: Maintenance and inspections, alarm recognition and management, accident investigation, emergency response and communications, and hazard recognition.
CSB Team Lead Banks said, “The CSB found that each incident was preceded by an event or multiple events that triggered internal incident investigations by DuPont, which then issued recommendations and corrective actions. But this activity was not sufficient to prevent the accidents from recurring.”
The CSB draft report recommends that the DuPont Belle facility revise its near-miss reporting and investigation policy to emphasize anonymous participation by all employees so that minor problems can be addressed before they become serious. The CSB report also recommends the Belle plant ensure that its computer systems will provide effective scheduling of preventive maintenance to require, for example, that phosgene hoses get replaced on time.
The CSB draft recommends that the DuPont Corporation require all phosgene production and storage areas company-wide have secondary enclosures, mechanical ventilation systems, emergency phosgene scrubbers, and automated audible alarms, which are at a minimum consistent with the standards of the National Fire Protection Code 55 for highly toxic gases.
Industry groups have established various good practices for the safe handling of phosgene and other highly toxic materials in compressed gas cylinders. The draft report concluded that the most comprehensive guidelines are those set forth by the National Fire Protection Association, or NFPA.
The draft report recommends that industry-organizations such as the Compressed Gas Association (CGA) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) adopt the more stringent guidelines of the NFPA for the safe handling of phosgene and other highly toxic gases.
The report recommends the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) update its compressed gas safety standard to include modern safeguards for toxic gases such as phosgene. These improved safeguards include: Secondary enclosures for units using phosgene, mechanical ventilation systems, emergency phosgene scrubbers, and automated audible alarms.
Chairman Moure-Eraso said, “Adoption of the CSB recommendations by OSHA, the Compressed Gas Association and the American Chemistry Council and, would greatly increase the safe handling of toxic gases nationally, and will protect workers from the deadly exposures.”
Dr. Moure-Eraso noted that he welcomes today’s release of the draft report and invites public comment on it. “Comments concerning the draft report will be carefully considered following the public comment period, after which Board Members will vote on the findings and recommendations. The report is not final until the vote is taken.”
