Refining

Oil & Gas continues to be the major source of energy and dependency has grown too high since majority of energy needs are met by this sector. This has necessitated the adoption of new technologies in exploration, refining & storage of the hydrocarbon in Oil & Gas Industry. Thus lot of technological improvements have taken place both in upstream & down stream sectors of Oil & Gas to enhance oil recoveries in upstream & reduce the bottom of the barrel and make environment friendly products in downstream.

Hydrocarbon Industry is hazardous & Complex

The Hydrocarbon Industry is subjected to High Safety Risk on account of potential hazard from fire & explosion due to handling, processing & storage of highly flammable liquid with low flash point, as well as gas & vapour and operation of the facilities at elevated temperature & pressure. Crude oil & Gas are handled during Oil Exploration and there is potential Hazard on account of Fire & explosions from leaks or blowouts. Similarly at Petroleum refining, gas processing & petrochemical installations, there are emerging hazards on accounts of process upsets, extreme physical conditions in addition to potential fire & explosion from accidental release of flammable hydrocarbon.

In recent past, the industry throughout its value chain has seen major up – gradations and capacity built up in Petroleum Refining, coupled with induction of newer technologies like Catalytic hydro-treating, Isomerisation for product quality improvements & value addition thru technologies like Hydrocracking, Fluidized Catalytic Cracking, Delayed Coking to extract maximum from bottom of the barrel and diversification towards petrochemicals, the complexity of operation has increasing so is our responsibility in operation of the assets in a safe and efficient way without disturbing the people & environment.

The Safety Management in Hydrocarbon Industry is a multi-disciplinary function and every person needs to keep vigil against potential cause of fire & accidents and strive to eliminate them. An incident is a failure in the control of any hazard that results in un-planned event like fire, explosion, run away reaction, release of toxic or flammable material, injury or fatality. A workplace incident is an indication that prevention was ineffective and that prompt changes need to be made. Everyone manning our work stations should draw lessons from past industry incidents to prevent recurrence.

Refining & Gas Processing group looks after the refinery operations, Gas Processing and operations of petrochemical plant located within the premises of refinery and gas processing plants.

The various activities carried out by this group in order to maintain high degree of safety in the Oil Industry in India are:

External Safety Audits of the Refineries & Gas Processing plants by a specialized group of highly experienced executives from the industry as well as other statutory bodies to strengthen safety measures and also emphasis the implementations of safety rules and regulations of various statutory bodies of India in the Refineries for enhancing safety. External safety Audits are carried out at a frequency of once in three years as per the directives of MoP&NG

The focus areas in such audits are:
Design & layout of the installation,
Operation safety and plant operating practices,
Maintenance and inspection aspects,
Safety management and fire protection systems
Environment compliance &
Training & development activities.

2.	A team with experts from industry & OISD carry out Surprise Safety Checks of refinery and gas processing plants to verify the implementation status of ESA’s and scrutinize safety management system of the industry. The frequency of surprise safety check is once in a year.

Refining & Gas Processing group develops standards to enhance the safety of the industry. The functional committee members for developing the standard are drawn from the relevant industry to put their experiences along with the International and National codes and practices e.g British Standards, API, NFPA etc.

Fire & Accidents Investigation: This group also carries out investigation of fires and accidents in refinery and gas processing plants and brings out the salient features responsible for the occurrence of such incidents and suggest remedial measures to prevent recurrences.

The analysis and the incidents shared with the industry members during steering committee meeting.

Total eight awards are presented to various groups as mentioned below:

1	Refineries (Best Performer)
2	Refineries (Runner Up)
3	LPG Marketing Organizations
4	POL Marketing Organizations
5	Oil and Gas Assets
6	Cross Country Pipelines
7	Other Processing Plants
8	Lube Oil Blending Plants