Health, Safety, Environment and Professional Ethics
Health, Safety, Environment and Professional Ethics tests risk assessment, process safety, well-control safety, environmental controls, and professional conduct. Expect ALARP, HAZOP, LOPA, permit-to-work, spill and flaring controls, and ethical decision-making.
Core rules
- Risk = likelihood × consequence. Use a risk matrix, and apply ALARP: reduce risk until further reduction is grossly disproportionate to benefit.
- HAZOP examines deviations such as no flow, more pressure, or reverse flow from design intent. LOPA estimates mitigated event frequency.
- Permit-to-work and isolation control hot work, confined space entry, and simultaneous operations.
- Environmental controls cover produced water, flaring, spill response, and waste. Monitor, report, and remediate.
- Ethics require protecting public safety, avoiding conflicts, maintaining confidentiality, reporting falsified data, and following professional codes.
Worked example
An initiating event has frequency 0.10/yr. Two independent protection layers have probability of failure on demand 0.10 and 0.01. Mitigated frequency = 0.10 × 0.10 × 0.01 = 1 × 10^-4/yr, or about 1 in 10,000 years. If the target is 1 × 10^-4/yr, the design just meets it; otherwise add a layer or reduce inventory. Multiply PFDs only for genuinely independent layers.
Traps
Saying risk is zero, treating ALARP as zero risk, or counting common-cause layers as independent will fail process-safety questions. Ignoring human factors and management of change is also common. Ethically, silence about falsified data or an unreported hazard is a failure of professional duty.
Key points
- Risk = likelihood × consequence; ALARP is not zero risk.
- HAZOP studies deviations from design intent.
- LOPA multiplies independent protection-layer PFDs.
- Permit-to-work controls hazardous and simultaneous operations.
- Ethics require reporting unsafe or falsified practices.