Health Safety and Environmental Studies

Project HSE Management - General

Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) management services are typically offered by an EPCONSULT team taking the responsible for all HSE activities for a specific phase of a project. The service can be performed from our office or by working in an integrated team with the client.

HSE management often implicitly includes asset management, so that risks to assets and business are also considered. Sometimes asset management is excluded or treated as a separate function.

The role may go under different titles including HSE Manager, HSEA Manager, Lead Safety Engineer etc. depending on client preference and exact definition of responsibilities.

Project HSE Manager's Duties

The duties of the assigned HSE management personnel would typically entail preparing the Project HSE Plan, which defines the project goals and objectives and the precise activities needed to achieve them. Subsequently, the assigned personnel would conduct or manage the activities described in the Project HSE Plan.

These activities may typically include hazard identification studies, risk assessments, safety studies, reliability analyses, hazard and operability studies, input to contract documents, review of project deliverables, review of vendor bid documents and the maintenance of an HSE Issues Tracking System.

If occupational health and safety is within the remit, activities would also include the development of a wide range of initiatives to raise awareness of hazards and the monitoring and reporting of health and safety performance.

Preparation of Safety Cases, emergency response and crisis management plans may also be required.

Many EPCONSULT employees are experienced in all the above aspects of Project HSE Management.

Safety Case Development

It is relatively simple to churn out an ordinary safety case which conveys a minimum of meaning obfuscated by a fog of words. EPCONSULT offers a comprehensive safety case, slim in physical size by virtue of an economy of words, but wide-ranging in its usefulness. Our safety case documents will engage the reader and contribute to active understanding of safety issues and potential remedial measures.

Whether we are dealing with the offshore industry or onshore petrochemical plants the key factors in delivering an effective safety case are always the same, namely:

• Effective management of the safety case process
• Having skillful Engineers
• Specialist expertise in Health and Safety issues including Quantitative Risk Analysis
• Elegant technical authorship to knit together many disparate contributions from different authors into a single, organic entity
• Presentation skills to hone down and extract the quintessence of the arguments in a face-to-face presentation to the client in half a day

Safety Case Structure

The process and tasks that have been undertaken to demonstrate that the objectives described in the Safety Case have been achieved, are documented in eight Parts. The preliminary pages to these Parts include an "Authority for Issue"/Page Status, a Preface and List of Abbreviations.

Part 1 Introduction and Summary: The Introduction and Summary introduces the background to the safety case submission and states the overall objectives and strategy. It also includes a brief description of the installation, a summary of the installation risk indicators, and the Safety Case conclusions.

Part 2 Installation Safety Management System: Describes the Health and Safety Policy, the organisation for Corporate Safety Management, and the main elements in the safety management process.

Part 3 Installation Safety Management System Activity Catalogue: Provides a catalogue of safety-critical activities affecting the installation, primary controls and accountabilities.

Part 4 Installation Description: Gives a description of the installation in support of other parts of the Safety Case, particularly part 5: Major Accident Hazard Management and Assessment.

Part 5 Major Accident Hazard Management and Assessment: Describes the Major Accident Hazard Management Process including: assessment of the hazards identified, estimate of risks associated with the installation, assurance of the established levels of safety and demonstration of the ALARP status of the installation.

Part 5 comprises the following appendices:

• Appendix 5A Management of Major Accident Hazards: Describes the Hazard Management Process of: identification, control, assessment, prevention and recovery. Part 5A also includes analysis of the Safety Management System.
• Appendix 5B Hazard Identification: Starting from a generic hazard checklist, part 5B identifies all Major Accident Hazards relevant to the installation. A discussion of the hazards that are outside the scope of the Major Accident Hazards criteria is included for completeness.
• Appendix 5C Essential Systems Survivability: Describes the analysis undertaken to establish whether the essential systems provided are capable of fulfilling their designated role following a major accident event.
• Appendix 5D Fire Consequence Analysis: Appendix 5D discusses the potential for fires on the installation. The assessment includes details of process fires, non-process fires, riser fires and blowouts. A summary of the impact on evacuation and escape facilities in the event of a fire is also included.
• Appendix 5E Explosion Consequence Analysis: Discusses potential explosion scenarios on the installation, the explosion modelling techniques used and explosion loading results. The blast survivability and provision of explosion protection on the installation is described. The structural consequence analysis is also summarised.
• Appendix 5F Smoke & Gas Ingress Analysis: Discusses how the consequence of smoke and gas movement and the potential of ingress into the TR have been assessed for the installation.
• Appendix 5G Toxic Gas Hazard Analysis: Discusses how the hazards associated with toxic gases have been assessed for the installation.
• Appendix 5H Collision Hazards: Discusses the impact of ship collisions with the installation of the platform. Both passing vessels and attendant vessel collisions will be considered. If appropriate collisions during tanker loading will be assessed.
• Appendix 5I Dropped Object Consequences: Discusses how the consequences of dropped objects on the installation have been analysed, both in terms of structural and escalation effects.
• Appendix 5J External Load Consequences: Discusses how the consequences on the installation of external loads arising from earthquakes, moving ice and sea transportation, plus construction and environmental loads have been analysed singly and in combination.
• Appendix 5N TR and EERA Analysis: Describes the TR and EER analysis methodology, and defines the TR endurance period. The analysis results are presented and discussed in detail.
• Appendix 5O Safety Critical Elements and Performance Standards Assessment: Identifies the safety equipment required under PFEER (or equivalent applicable legislation). The link between major accident hazards and the performance standards is also identified. For each SCE identified under PFEER a summary of the performance requirements is presented.
• Appendix 5P QRA: A summary of the Quantitative Risk Analysis report is included as this appendix.
• Appendix 5Q Assessment of Major Accident Hazards: The assessment results for all hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon Major Accident Hazards, including Potential Loss of Life (PLL) and Temporary Refuge Impairment Frequency (TRIF) results will be presented
• Appendix 5R ALARP Demonstration: The ALARP process is described and the QRA results are reviewed to determine if risks have been reduced to a level that is considered to be ALARP. Additional prevention, control and mitigation measure may be required.

Part 6 Continuous Improvement: Summarizes the risk reduction measures reviewed during the installation Safety Case preparation, measures implemented and those under consideration.

Part 7 Conclusion: Contains an examination of the results, a judgement of risk levels and TR impairment acceptability, and conclusions with regard to meeting the objective of making the case for safety.

Part 8: References

Environmental Assessment

Environmental assessment typically investigates all planned and unplanned (accidental) streams of waste, emissions to air and discharges to land and sea. Accidental initiating events may be defined by risk analysis.

To ensure that environmental issues are comprehensively identified, an environmental issues identification (ENVID) meeting is usually held, especially for more complex projects, where a team participates in structured brainstorming under the guidance of an EPCONSULT environmental specialist.

Existing environmental status and sensitivities are defined by data collection exercises, either desk studies or field surveys.

For desk studies, environmental data are collected and analyzed from multiple sources within national and international arenas.

When existing data are inadequate, surveys are commissioned to obtain specific information on the status of the environment in the project area.

Potential environmental risks during construction, operations and ultimately abandonment/decommissioning are reviewed with reference to adverse impacts upon air, water and land, and upon flora and fauna. Routine emissions and discharges and accidental leaks and spillages are all considered. Socioeconomic impacts of the development may also be addressed.

Based upon the analysis of the frequency and severity of events that may affect the environment, a project philosophy is normally derived in respect of:

• Monitoring/recognition
• Response
• Emergency procedures
• Containment
• Minimization of impacts
• Remediation

Why choose EPCONSULT?

EPCONSULT has a range of specialists experienced in Project HSE Management. It is a challenging role, requiring managerial and interpersonal skills plus the technical ability to understand the work of the numerous engineering disciplines involved in offshore projects, and the ability to monitor and appraise the output of those different disciplines in order to identify and assess risk and reliability issues.

Key reasons to choose EPCONSULT for services in Project HSE Management are that we have personnel with solid experience in working within the design team and, in addition, we have expert skills in performing the associated risk and reliability analyses, therefore the assigned Project HSE Manager will be supported by strong specialist skills back in our offices.

Delivery of HSE Training Courses

Please contact us to request further details of our Project HSE Management services