IChemE 2nd regional safety seminar – Part II

July 23, 2008

Continuing on the same topic above, a presentation was delivered by Damain Peake, Sr Technical Safety Engineer, Shell E&P Asia Pacific entitled ‘Shell – Asia Pacific (EPA) operationalises HSE cases: major hazards communication and technical integrity’

  • Shell E&P AP portfolio.
  • Asset Integrity – Definitions
  • Technical Integrity – Definitions
  • Introduction to Safety Cases
    • Show all that hazards with the potential to cause a major accident have been identified, their risks have been evaluated and measures have been taken to control them.
  • Issues
    • Focus: SC used to capture all hazards, not just causes of major accidents.
    • Usability: SC unwieldy due to too much info.
    • Upkeep of SC, Management of Change (MOC)
    • Consistency of SC structure.
  • Framework to address Issues
  • Operationalise Shell E&P AP SCs.
    • Operating envelope and SC agreement
    • Institute maintenance schedule
    • MAH identified
    • Compliance to ALARP principles
    • Accountability
    • Remedial action plan and progress tracking
  • SC HSE section structure
    • Overview
    • Major Accident Hazards (MAH)
    • Equipment
    • Systems
    • Additional information
  • Best Practices
    • MAH and assessments
      • Best Practice Bow Tie – templates, electronically distributed and linked.
    • Hazard / Safety Critical Element (SCE) communication
      • Hazard control sheets.
      • Major accident pictures.
      • KPIs.
    • SCE and technical integrity
      • Change from facility description to SCE description
      • Describe how to keep the SCE operating.
      • Clear guidelines on how to manage SCEs when not fully functional.
  • Take home messages
    • Process safety – asset integrity (AI) intrinsically linked.
    • In operations, MAH management can only be ensured if technical integrity is ensured.
    • Operations HSE case have 3 main functions: communication, linkages, …
    • HSE lose focus.

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IEM Shoutout – Drilling Seminar

July 22, 2008

My tiny sphere of influence in the IEM, the Oil, Gas and Mining Technical Division (OGMTD), is running a drilling seminar this Saturday morning (26th July, 2008). The seminar will be held at the Crystal Crown hotel, on Jalan Utara in PJ, from 9 to 1 pm. Costs are IEM members: RM200.00, non-members: 300.00

The registration form is available here. This is a draft outline of the course.

For further details, please contact Jamaliah ( 03-7968 4012 ) or Norimah ( 03-7968 4010 ) at the Institute for seats, or contact the Secretriat at sec@iem.org.my.

Come one, come all, so I can get some brownie points!

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Saturday Star 08-07-19 – Job Opportunities

July 21, 2008

Another week, another scan of the Saturday Star newspaper. Here’s a list of job ads in the paper:

  • Trident Consultants (a competitor of mine) is looking for a project engineering manager, process engineer, principal consultants, lead consultants, project consultants and fresh meat. Email and web presence available.

Happy hunting. Let me have some feedback if you find this list useful. Even better, spread the news. PayPal donations welcome.

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Posted by Wata

Token of Appreciation

July 20, 2008
Safety Culture Reminder

Safety Culture Reminder

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IChemE 2nd regional safety seminar – Part I

July 19, 2008

I attended the above seminar on Monday, 14th July 2007. Interesting crowd, for once I felt that I was among my brethren of ChemEng.

I took some notes on the first presentation ‘PETRONAS – Enhancing chemical process safety in PETRONAS towards superior performance’ delivered by Kumar Karunakaran of Group Technical Services.

  • Introduction to PETRONAS
  • Introduction to Process Safety
  • Process Safety Enhancements in PETRONAS
  • Implementation approach
  • Implementation of new Roles and Responsibilities
    • Champions
    • Focal Person
    • Process Safety Aspect Custodian
  • The role of Situational Assessments (SA).
  • Problem areas discovered during SAs.
    • Control of Safety Interlocks & Protective System Bypasses.
    • Inconsistent Lock Out Tag Out (LOTO) application when used on non-electrical equipment.
    • Insufficient Pressure Relief Devices (PRD) performance evaluation.
  • Ensuring sustainability through monitoring and measurement
    • Establish Process Safety Community of Practice (CoP)
  • Key success factors.
  • Way forward.
Blue Spotted Stingray

Blue Spotted Stingray

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Gas Prices – The Continuing Saga

July 18, 2008

News on the gas prices. Extracting from The Star:

From July 1, industries using more than two million cu ft of gas a day will enjoy a 70% discount on the market price of gas, now at RM79 per million British thermal unit (mmmbtu).

Under this new structure, industries using more than two million cu ft of gas a day will enjoy the new price of RM23.88 per mmmbtu, down from RM32.56 per mmmbtu, which was to have been effective this month.

Those using less than two million cu ft a day, including 8,887 households that have gas piped directly to their homes, will enjoy a price of RM22.06 per mmmbtu beginning Aug.

 I wonder if the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) had anything to do with this?

Barracuda Shoal

Barracuda Shoal

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Prof Peng Plenary Lecture

July 17, 2008

I have finally managed to compress the video of this lecture. It’s 120MB, so take a healthy walk while waiting for the download.

You can download the file here.

3 Comments | engineering | Permalink
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Perils of Operational Shortcuts

July 16, 2008

I wanted to title this entry ‘Peril of Penelope Pitstop’ but couldn’t find the oil and gas spin. Lost opportunity or what?

Below is the result of a procedural shortcut, which was done without doing a JSA, Take-2, Step Back or any program where you think, analyse and plan before you act:

As if we don’t have enough public transport problems already…

In this case, no one was hurt. I’ve seen the (bloodless) aftermath of another non-oil and gas trained individual who took the same turn, but didn’t see a motorcycle coming up on his right.

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Transferable Skills

July 15, 2008

As the price of oil continues upward, us in the industry might get all comfy and fuzzy. The higher the price, the more secure jobs in the oil and gas industry seem to be.

However, I would consider whether a general rise of cost of living would result in a slowdown of the oil and gas industry.If so, then perhaps you should look at the skills that you have, and see whether they can be transferred to another engineering line.

Let’s take me, for example. What skills would I like to strengthen to make me more marketable?

  • Engineering skills: I need to keep my ChemEng knowledge and experience in other fields up to date. If I had a choice, I guess I would need to work on downstream processes, where ChemEng rules. Strippers, catalysts, crackers.
  • The second best way is to work in upstream projects which use a lot of cross-industry processes. Membranes, glycol contactor systems, deprop and debutanisers. Knowing my way around simulation packages (and not getting into a ‘crap in, crap out’ situation) would be a serious advantage.
  • Everyone needs good management skills. So, those project management muscles would need a workout. Try and get into a technical leadership role. The bigger the value of the project under you, the nicer your CV looks.
  • Good networking skills are essential as well. I believe that Malaysia runs on contacts. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Isn’t that one of the 7 habits of highly effective people?
  • If all fails, get a hobby which you enjoy, and think you may be able to commercialise. Blogging, professional diving… wait a minute, that’s me.

Anything else? Share your ideas, and give an old geezer like me job security.

Durban Boxing Shrimp

Durban Boxing Shrimp

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Saturday Star 08-07-12 – Job Opportunities

July 14, 2008

Another week, another scan of the Saturday Star newspaper. Here’s a list of job ads in the paper:

  • Orogenic Resources is looking for a business development manager.
  • Optimal is looking for a DCS engineer. Email and web prescence available. A lot of people moved to Optimal when it first started up, though I think the renumeration package isn’t as good nowadays. However, it’s still better than PETRONAS because Dow Chemicals is running interference.
  • Ibn Zahn, a subsidiary of the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) is looking for a whole mess of process engineers. Apply via email here, or SMS to 017-2540204.

Happy hunting. Let me have some feedback if you find this list useful. Even better, spread the news. PayPal donations welcome.

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