HAZOP Study- What is HAZOP?
(Note: To learn about HAZOP Study in detail and to get certified as a competent
person, please download or enroll online in the Abhisam HAZOP training course)
HAZOP is an acronym which is short for Hazard and Operability study and it
was first introduced many years ago by ICI, a multinational chemicals company,
based out of the UK. ICI no longer exists today as ICI (various parts have been
taken over by companies such as Huntsman and AkzoNobel), but the HAZOP study technique that they pioneered, continues to grow in
importance.
HAZOP is a risk assessment technique, used mainly in the chemical and process industries such as oil and gas,
refining, petrochemical, heavy chemicals, pharmaceutical and power generation
as well as industries such as mining too. HAZOP is one technique out of a group
of risk assessment techniques that form part of PHA (Process Hazard Analysis) .
Other techniques in PHA are FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis), LOPA
(Layer of Protection Analysis), HAZID (Hazard Identification), What-If analysis
and of course checklists. HAZOP is more subjective rather than quantitative.
The HAZOP technique is designed to
identify the intentions and deviations of a particular operation, called a
node. For example, a node may be a section of a plant that pumps liquid from a
storage tank to a reactor some distance away. Then in this node, the original
intention is identified (transporting liquid from the storage tank to the
reactor) and then all possible deviations are analyzed in detail. Some of these
deviations may result in accidents (for example if there is a reverse flow of
liquid from the reactor to the tank). This process (the HAZOP process) is known
as a HAZOP Study.
You may now appreciate that a HAZOP study should be done only by skilled
personnel. If an unskilled or untrained person carries out a HAZOP (using the
best software or no software), the chances of doing a bad HAZOP increase
manifold. Doing a bad HAZOP is worse than doing no HAZOP at all because a bad
HAZOP lulls people into a false sense of security, that their HAZOP study is
complete (and the recommendations are implemented and the plant is safe and
everybody lived happily ever after) when actually the opposite is true.
