During the II ANPRA Congress of Lessons Learned from Serious Accidents or Incidents in Pilotage Maneuvers, organized in Cartagena by the National Association of Colombian Pilots, Siport21 explained the paramount importance of HAZID-HAZOP processes as a tool for risk analysis in port operations.
The Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) includes these processes. A risk assessment that aims to improve maritime safety applies this evaluation, including the protection of human life, health, the marine environment, and property, together with a cost-benefit analysis.
With this assessment, all hazard scenarios that could occur are analysed, evaluating each of them in terms of their probability of occurrence and consequences, and deciding whether they are acceptable or not. In the latter case, the corrective measures or procedures applicable are studied to reduce the probability of occurrence of critical scenarios, or minimize the consequences.
For the access of vessels to port infrastructures, clear and objective results will be obtained from the different risk studies to establish whether they are acceptable or not and therefore draw up safety reports and procedures.
The FSA process comprises five stages. In the first stage, risk identification, HAZID, is carried out to define scenarios: geographical environment, design vessels, meteorological and current information, existing resources, and human factors.
The next stage includes a qualitative and quantitative consequence analysis and an assessment of existing risks based on ship manoeuvring simulations, grounding risk studies, dynamic mooring analysis, passing ships, and traffic analysis.
From the result of this assessment, a criterion of acceptance of the risks is applied, prevention and response measures are generated, and a cost-benefit analysis is carried out.
This information will allow the design of an Operations Manual and Contingency Plan, HAZOP, with options and recommendations for decision-makers.
This methodology can be used as a tool to assess new rules relating to maritime safety and marine environmental protection, or to compare existing procedures with possibly improved ones, to establish a balance between the various technical and functional issues, including the human factor, and between maritime safety or marine environmental protection and costs.
Siport21 has applied this methodology in several terminals managing hazardous goods, such as LNG, crude oil and products, chemicals, etc., where the risk factor is higher.
