Empowering process safety hazard awareness and technical learning in energy operations
Laurence Ledrut A *A
Laurence Ledrut is the Process Safety Manager within Origin Energy Integrated Gas. She has two Masters of Engineering, the first from the French Engineering school ESAIP in Safety and Environmental Risk Prevention, and the second from the Australian University of Queensland in Engineering Sciences (Chemical). She is a Fellow and Chartered Professional Engineer with Engineers Australia, Registered Professional Engineer Queensland in Chemical Engineering, Functional Safety Engineer (TUV certified), Associate Member of IChemE and Justice of the Peace (Qualified). She specialises in Process Engineering and Process Safety Engineering and has 18 years of experience leading multidiscipline technical teams and programs across Europe and the Pacific. Her experience covers the entire lifecycle of assets, she brings a practical and structured approach based on stakeholder engagement to achieve positive outcomes. She is passionate about building an open learning culture and collaboration across disciplines and boundaries, to prevent future process safety incidents and technical failures. |
Abstract
The Process Safety Management discipline is still misunderstood and deemed complex despite the efforts and progress that have been made over the past decades in the energy industry. This is important as the energy industry turns towards the energy transition and needs to remember the fundamentals of managing process safety risks in emerging technologies. At Origin Energy, leadership, risk management and learning are tightly connected when it comes to ensuring good process safety. In this context, Origin Energy’s Integrated Gas Business Unit has implemented Process Safety Management initiatives over the last 5 years grouped under three Process Safety Management strategic pillars: empowered process safety leadership; open-minded learning culture and best practice process hazard management. The aim of these initiatives was to develop a heightened process safety culture across the business unit. The approach used was to demystify process safety concepts to generate engagement and ownership at all levels. This was supplemented with implementing a companywide Engineering and Technical Community of Practice to enable sharing of technical learning across boundaries and building strong process safety risk awareness foundations supported by a Process Hazard Analysis Revalidation program.
Keywords: leadership, learning, major accident events, major hazard incidents, process hazard management, process safety, process safety hazard awareness, process safety leadership, process safety incidents, process safety risks, risk management, technical learning.
Laurence Ledrut is the Process Safety Manager within Origin Energy Integrated Gas. She has two Masters of Engineering, the first from the French Engineering school ESAIP in Safety and Environmental Risk Prevention, and the second from the Australian University of Queensland in Engineering Sciences (Chemical). She is a Fellow and Chartered Professional Engineer with Engineers Australia, Registered Professional Engineer Queensland in Chemical Engineering, Functional Safety Engineer (TUV certified), Associate Member of IChemE and Justice of the Peace (Qualified). She specialises in Process Engineering and Process Safety Engineering and has 18 years of experience leading multidiscipline technical teams and programs across Europe and the Pacific. Her experience covers the entire lifecycle of assets, she brings a practical and structured approach based on stakeholder engagement to achieve positive outcomes. She is passionate about building an open learning culture and collaboration across disciplines and boundaries, to prevent future process safety incidents and technical failures. |
References
Bridges WG, Tew R, Massello MA (2018) Best Practices for PHA Revalidation. In ‘Proceedings of 2018 Spring Meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and 14th Global Congress on Process Safety’, 22–25 April 2018, Orlando, Florida. Available at https://www.process-improvement-institute.com/_downloads/Best_Practices_for_PHA_Revalidation_-_FINAL.PDF
Safer Together (2019) Queensland Process Safety Working Group – Contain-it. Available at https://www.safertogether.com.au/resources/products-and-programs/contain-it-wa-nt
Safer Together (2020) Queensland Process Safety Working Group – We all have a part to play for Process Safety. Available at https://www.safertogether.com.au/resources/products-and-programs/process-safety-we-all-have-a-part-to-play
