Petrochemical Industry - Research Paper Example

Management of Health, Safety and Environment in Petrochemical Industry Introduction The petrochemical industry is a high-risk one, which involves hazardous material, chemical reaction, flammable explosion and many other risks that the workers at the plant are exposed to while at work. Many toxic, flammable, hazardous and explosive substances are used in the processing of manufacture and operation at the petrochemical plant. Therefore, it is vital that the management recognizes the risks and hazards and possibly come up with ways through which to minimize the risks. Safety management is very essential for petrochemical plants; the law that the petrochemical plants are required to meet has set standards. Additionally, there are rules and regulations concerning employee liability insurance as well as the standards of the insurers. Above everything, health and safety is a top priority at the petrochemical plants. If accidents of leakage of the chemicals occurred, there would be a lot of toxic substances released into the environment. The toxic substances are harmful to the personnel at the plant, the people living around the area and the environment as a whole. This therefore has necessitated the need for petrochemical plants to come up with effective risk assessment programs and risk management programs to minimize the loss suffered by the plant as a result of the leakage of the toxic substances. There are four major risk management approaches that a plan can choose to adopt. These include risk reduction, risk avoidance, risk transference and risk retention (Khan &Abbasi, 1998, 28). Hazards and Risk Management in Petrochemical Plant Education of employees on the hazards In cases of tragedy, it is critical that the reaction be at the quickest time possible. The management and all the employees in the petrochemical plant need to be educated on the risks and hazards they are likely to be at risk to at the plant. Through this at there shall be minimum likelihood of any kind of accidents occurring at the plant. Although hazards related to flammable gases and toxic gases are common knowledge to personnel who operate in the petrochemical industry, continuous training and refreshment of knowledge on the matter is important in order to avoid any kinds of incidents that may come about as a result (Berthe & George, 2001, 42). The management should ascertain that all the employees are trained on the risks they are exposed to and ways of responding to them in case of an emergency. All the personnel at all the organizational level should be keenly involved in the detection of any hazards and risks at the plant. The employees should be informed of the risks that they are exposed to while working at the petrochemical plants. Inhaling the toxic gases emitted at the plant on a daily basis exposes an individual to critical diseases. Before one decides to work at the plant, they should make an informed decision on the future implications. Gas and fire detectors Gaseous toxic substances are normally very dangerous because they are invisible and hence hard to detect. Install flammable gas detection system scan at the petrochemical firm as a way of providing a warning to flammable risks before the gas even reaches its flammable level. All the workers at the firm should have some training on all the emergency alarms that have been installed in the firm and on how to respond to these alarms. There should be verbal messages to ensure that the employees know exactly what they are to do when the alarm goes off. Employees’ response time have an impact on whether an accident at the petrochemical firm is costly to the management or not. The gas detectors should be maintained from time to time to ensure they work perfectly and meet the required standards. The gases emitted from the petrochemical firm are quite dangerous to one’s general health. There should be safety gear that all the employees wear in order to ensure they are not exposed to these toxic gases. In addition, the employees need to be educated on the safety precautions and actions to take in case of exposure to these toxic gases. Some of the equipments the employees can wear for their health safety include respiratory gadgets, escape equipment in case of an emergency and breathing apparatuses for gas emissions in the plant. The flame detection gadgets should be placed at strategic locations where fire is likely to emanate from at the plant. In addition, the management can opt to place firefighting gadgets in the plant such as pumps compressors and vessels. The employees ought to be trained on how to use the gadgets in case a fire breaks out at the plant (Greenberg & Cramer, 1991, 22). There are standards set on how to dispose of the wastes from the petrochemical plant. When setting up a petrochemical plant, one has to take into consideration the risk it poses to the community living around the area. The petrochemical plant has a responsibility to the community and has to ensure it does not cause any kind of harm to the health of the people around the community. The gases emitted from the petrochemical plant should. The petrochemical plants can opt to use other cleaner sources of energy, especially in an instance where the plant is located in a city or near a city (Khan & Abbasi, 1998, 34). The toxic substances additionally pose a risk to the environment. Most hazardous exposures normally take place during the period of maintenance work is being performed at the plant. Equipment risk management The equipments used in the plant should also be maintained frequently to minimize the risks associated with poor performance of the equipments. Inspection should be carried out at the firm frequently to ascertain that the petrochemical firm actually meets the standards have been set by the government. Most safety equipments are set for inspection every six months and replacement every four years although most management choose to ignore this (Greenberg & Cramer, 1991, 45). Produce an emergency plan The emergency plan comes in handy in case an accident or incident happens at the plant. The employees should be given a description of the measures that should be taken to control or limit the consequences that come about because of the accident at the plant. In addition, the plan should include information on how the warning systems set up at the plan are supposed to function. The public also need to be provided with information about the Conclusion Although the management may view some hazard and risk management programs to be rather expensive, it saves the petrochemical firm many costs in the end. For instance, insurance companies may be willing to give the personnel favorable rates with the lower danger class rating, especially in an instance where the safety standard for the plant is above the average as compared to other sectors. In addition, setting up an efficient risk management program in the plant will mean fewer incidents and accidents and incidents for the firm hence inevitably saving the firm some costs. Bibliography Barth, R. C., George, P. D., & Hill, R. H. (2002). Environmental health and safety for hazardous waste sites. Fairfax, Va, American Industrial Hygiene Association. Greenberg, H. R., & Cramer, J. J. (1991). Risk assessment and risk management for the chemical process industry: Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation. New York [etc.], John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Khan, F. I., & Abbasi, S. A. (1998). Risk assessment in chemical process industries: advanced techniques. New Delhi, Discovery Publ. House. Read More