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Why Proper PHA/HAZOP Documentation is Critical for LOPA

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Saltegra Consulting
Why Proper PHA/HAZOP Documentation is Critical for LOPA

We may think that It should be common sense to always have proper documentation in your Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) or Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) Study.



What PHA/HAZOP information transfers?

- Initiating event details

- Consequence details

- Severity (if the HAZOP includes Consequence Severity Ranking, which is the norm and best practice in recent times)

- Safeguards (to be screened as IPLs)


Example: If a scenario of a runaway reaction that could lead to loss of containment, the release of process materials, fire/explosion, and potential fatality was ranked a consequence severity of 5,but in reality, there is a potentially fatal impact to only 4 people based on modeling. This scenario was not flagged for further analysis, a recommendation for a higher Safety Integrity Level (SIL) on a Safety Instrumented Function (SIF) was required, increasing project AND operational costs.


What are the impacts of poor documentation?

1. The common implications of poor documentation are the possible misidentification of a scenario and a poorly developed scenario that should have been evaluated in LOPA.

2. Possible overestimation of a scenario’s severity, therefore increasing the required risk reduction leading to costly recommendations.

3. Hopefully, the LOPA Team was able to catch the overestimated scenario severity.

4. Consequently, all of these increase the time spent in session!

If we do it (documentation and analysis) right the first time, we can be safer less time doing busy work and spend quality time on what matters.


Source: https://www.saltegra.com/post/2019/03/05/why-proper-phahazop-documentation-is-critical-for-lopa

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