Prelude stores thousands of tonnes of LNG and LPG with an almost constant and simultaneous operation of loading this product onto carrier vessels moored alongside. So any Safety Case has to look at the combined risks of Prelude and the carrier vessel moored alongside.
BP Texas City Refinery Explosion March 2005
Fourth in a series of articles by Bill Campbell (right), retired HSE Group Auditor, Shell International, about safety issues relating to the Shell Prelude FLNG project
John
Hope you find this interesting, perhaps your contributors can answer the question posed at the end.
When I started to write these articles I was struck by the manner in which Prelude FLNG as a hazardous substances plant turned the conventional wisdom of plant design and layout on its head. Could such an installation be approved in the offshore UK for example? A hypothetical question but one worthy of an answer. I don’t believe it could. After all the Health and Safety Regulator in the UK, the custodian and owner of the many British Standards and codes for the design and layout of onshore hazardous substances plants, is the same Regulator for the offshore oil and gas industry. This is also the same Regulator that followed up on Cullen’s recommendation and put in place a suite of legislation requiring offshore installations to restrict the heat energy in an emergency, so ensuring hydrocarbon events could not escalate to threaten the newly installed temporary refuges. Prelude stores thousands of tonnes of LNG and LPG with an almost constant and simultaneous operation of loading this product onto carrier vessels moored alongside. So any Safety Case has to look at the combined risks of Prelude and the carrier vessel moored alongside.