Hazard Operability Study for Chemical Industry

This paper deals with the Hazard Operability Study (HAZOP) for Chemical processing plant. Chemical industry has potential source to cause fire, explosion, human injury and property loss due their numerous process operation. Chemical industry has greater risk of fire and explosion due to handling and processing of various hazardous flammable and reactive chemicals. To bring down this risk into the acceptable level there are various risk reduction techniques are used in chemicals industry like, Failure Mode Effective Analysis, Fault Tree Analysis, Event Tree Analysis, HAZOP, Checklist, inspection, Audit, and What if Analysis. HAZOP is the most appropriable method to bring down the process risk in chemical industry. This paper describes HAZOP techniques to prevent human and property losses in the operation and management of chemical process plant. The overall methodology presented in this paper allows systematic identification of hazards as well as quantification of the risks associated with the operation of chemical process plants. This aids the selection and prioritization of necessary strategies for accident prevention, reduction and limiting their consequences. This paper can be used for improving plant safety performance as well as to reduce human and property losses. A Hazard and operability study (HAZOP) is structured and systematic examination of a planned or existing process or operation in order to identify and evaluate problems that may represent risks to personnel or equipment or prevent efficient operation.