QUANTIFIED INHERENT SAFER DESIGN FOR OIL AND GAS PROJECTS

Abstract

The drive to create an inherently safer design within an oil recovery plant is seen by investors as a critical element of ensuring resilient technology that can guarantee a return on investment within the heavy oil industry. Many oil and gas major corporations have taken up the opportunity to invest in the heavy oil recovery projects within the Middle East and North African (MENA) region by engaging governments as well as importing their approved technology for enhanced oil recovery. The proliferation of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) plants in the region has resulted in increased productivity and market output. The region benefits from such a drive for investment because of the existing infrastructure for the hydrocarbon industry. Even though the safety risks for the oil and gas industry have been examined many times, there has been a gap in terms of identifying means to objectively state the safety readiness of the EOR technology as well as weaker indications of the level of inherent safer design (ISD) levels deployed on the technology. This problem is compounded by the cultural differences between the internationally sourced EOR technology and the recipients of it, leading to varied safety perceptions on the EOR projects. This research proposes quantified inherent safer design (QISD) for oil and gas projects using an expert system. The research used secondary data through literature and primary data through a questionnaire survey; and found that the application of ISD as well as the indication of safety readiness for the technology were done in a subjective manner with no clarity on the process and the outcome. The proposed QISD introduced objectivity by allowing the process to score the level of ISD applied to the project at a particular phase in order to reduce an identifiable process hazard. Therefore, the contribution to knowledge from this research is the creation of a quantified inherent safer design protocol that can be used by decision makers in the selection of a project at appraisal phase as well as improve the inherent safety within the EOR plant. Key words: Inherent safer design, Enhanced oil recovery, Quantified ISD; MENA

Date of Award	1 Aug 2019
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Moray Kidd (Supervisor)