Aging Equipment in Facilities and Daily Maintenance – Latent Risks on Sites with Major-accident Hazards acc. Directive 2012/18/EU

Abstract

Since decades systematic safety analyses are well established methods to reduce the risks on sites with major-accident hazards acc. directive 2012/18/EU. In this time frame the methodologies have evolved as well as the depth of the analysis conducted. A special focus was also laid on aging equipment when sources of major accidents have been analyzed. However the focus here always has been safety on related parts of the plant i. e. vessels, reactors and other apparatus enclosing the hazardous substances or physical process parameters as well as related safety systems to eliminate or mitigate the risk. As part of the analyses the outage of facilities, energy and operating supplies was covered. In the systematic safety analyses the potential impact of severe weather conditions including i. e. flooding and other impact caused by environment and neighborhood are discussed if reasonable to the location of the site. But what will happen if the source of flooding is internally? A crater is developing due to release of compressed gases and causes the hazard of structure instability of steelwork/platforms and buildings? Is it reasonable to consider facilities as a cause of this type of hazards? Acc. to article 10 c) of the directive 2012/18/EU the safety report needs to demonstrate that adequate measures to reach safety and reliability have been taken into account in the design, construction, operation and maintenance of any installation, storage facility, equipment and infrastructure connected to operation and linked to major-accident hazards inside the establishment. Based on selected examples the latent risk of aging facilities as well as human factors will be discussed showing that future safety analyses need to be more comprehensive to uncover these latent risks and to fulfill the requirements of article 10 c) in addition with annex II “Minimum data and information to be considered in the safety report referred to in Article 10”.