Risk assessment and its management for environmental pollution in oil refinery using FMEA approach

The main goal of petrochemical industries is to produce petrochemical and chemical products as well as by-products of oil and oil derivatives along with natural gas, which have the potential to cause adverse effects on the environment due to the activities and processes. This study was conducted with the aim of investigating the environmental, safety and health risks in the gas condensate storage tanks in an oil refining company. In order to prevent accidents in process industries and considering the increasing development in all aspects of these industries, it is necessary to identify the risks in the processes and evaluate their risk management. In this study, in order to assess quantitative risk, the FMEA method was developed to provide an approach with high user power, followed by management of risks that can be understood by all personnel, so that, its results can be used to analyze incidents. The results showed that the bowtie method provides a complete, and understandable graphic structure of the incident scenarios along with all the components of the incident and a good connection with the components of a management system. Research implications were to facilitate the implementation of the bowtie method, hence, the active bowtie software was introduced and some of its features were examined. It was also a case study on the LPG unit of the refinery. The results showed the existence of a purposeful and at the same time, adaptable management. In addition, the most important petrochemical risks included air pollution, reduction of water quality and jeopardizing the public health of the region. Therefore, in order to reduce or eliminate the risks and factors that cause environmental risks, it is suggested that the inspection and monitoring periods, according to the identified risks, should be among the most important goals of the management plans.

Keywords:

Environmental risk assessment , Bowtie diagram , Fault tree , Event tree , FMEA