Recipe for a Complete Process Hazard Analysis – Including Covering All of the Current Demands from US CSB

Process hazard analyses (PHAs) is not a new topic. Surprising, more that 80% of PHAs performed today do not comply with the current interpretations by US OSHA, much less the industry best practices. Most PHAs address less than 10% of the hazards during startup, shutdown, and online maintenance and less than about 30% address damage mechanisms such as corrosion, erosion, external impacts, external stresses, vibration, etc. How to address these hazards have been part of the CCPS Guidelines for Hazard Evaluation Procedures since 1991 and the US CSB and US OSHA have noted how these weaknesses have led to many accidents. This paper and presentation illustrates step-by-step how to address All hazards of the process during All modes of operation, during a PHA. The presentation and paper will use examples of process hazards missed and found to illustrate the importance of this step-by-step approach. The results are based on thousands of unit-sized PHAs performed or managed by PII staff.