process safety management PSM

Digitization reduces risk, optimizes safety lifecycle

Automated approach

May 6, 2020

In the process industries, poor safety performance has significant business implications. Plants need a comprehensive approach to the safety lifecycle addressing key requirements ranging from HAZOP studies, to operations and maintenance, and finally revalidation with the plant’s historian and maintenance data.

Managing Process Changes

Visibility, collaboration and workflow control are all key

Matt Airhart

September 9, 2019

For operations like oil and gas that involve hazardous processes, change management can be a matter of life and death. Operational failures resulting from insufficiently planned changes can result in catastrophic events.

Companies cited after fatal fire at Pennsylvania natural gas plant

June 14, 2019

OSHA has cited both a contractor and the operator of a natural gas processing plant in Houston, Pennsylvania, following a fire that killed one worker and left three others badly burned. The agency cited Energy Transportation LLC, the company contracted to clean lines and vessels at the plant, for violations of the process safety management (PSM) standard, and for exposing employees to flammable vapor and liquid while they off-loaded waste material from a vessel into a mobile tank.

Cal/OSHA OKs tough new refinery safety regulation

Rule intended to reduce risk of major incidents

May 23, 2017

While regulations on the federal level are being repealed or delayed, the rulemaking process is still going strong at the state level – as demonstrated by California’s approval last week of a tough new oil refinery safety regulation.

CSB IDs cause of 2015 ExxonMobil refinery explosion

May 4, 2017

Process safety management (PSM) failures were behind the 2015 explosion at the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, California – an event that raised gas prices in California and cost drivers in the state an estimated $2.4 billion.

A Confined Space Blog post

Blood in your food: Injury and death on farms

Jordan Barab

April 14, 2017

There are many metaphors that are commonly used in Washington DC. One of those metaphors is to describe something at “the third rail of politics.” Wikipedia defines “third rail of politics” as “a metaphor for any issue so controversial that it is “charged” and “untouchable” to the extent that any politician or public official who dares to broach the subject will invariably suffer politically.”

New video shows fatal fire, explosion at Williams Olefins Plant

CSB effort includes 3D animation of the blast

January 30, 2017

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has released a safety video of its investigation of the June 13, 2013 explosion and fire at the Williams Olefins Plant in Geismar, Louisiana, which killed two workers and injured an additional 167. The deadly explosion and fire occurred when a heat exchanger containing flammable liquid propane violently ruptured.

DuPont cited for hazmat hazards at NJ plant

December 16, 2014

Hazardous chemicals known to cause severe burns, respiratory and reproductive health issues leaked out of a tanker truck in May 2014, which exposed workers at E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Chamber Works in Deepwater, to health risks. A complaint filed with OSHA prompted an inspection of the company under the agency's National Emphasis Program on Chemical Process Safety.