Williams Olefins Incident: Solid Process Safety Management Saves Lives

A breakdown in process safety management programs can lead to disastrous results. Such was the case at the Williams Olefins Geismar, Louisiana, chemical plant on June 13, 2013 where two workers died and 167 others suffered injuries after a catastrophic equipment rupture, explosion, and fire that started in a reboiler that fed into a propylene fractionator.

When implementing a safety program, users need to follow a plan that addresses the safety of people, the facility and the environment. Everyone must be informed and educated as safety is the result of a collaborative workforce effort. At the Williams Olefins plant safety programs were deficient as a result of a work culture that failed to foster and support strong process safety performance.

Williams Olefins’ process safety management program deficiencies contributed to the catastrophic incident in the following ways: 

• Lack of adequate Management of Change (MOC) or Pre-Startup Safety Reviews (PSSRs) execution surrounding two significant process changes involving the propylene fractionator reboilers lead to the installation of block valves and the addition of car seals. As a result, the company did not evaluate and control all hazards introduced to the process by those changes. Failing to account for the over pressurization potential helped cause the incident.
• The chemical maker failed to both adequately implement action items developed during Process Hazard Analyses (PHAs) and to properly execute recommendations from a contracted pressure relief system engineering analysis. Consequently, Williams Olefins did not effectively apply overpressure protection by either by installing a pressure relief valve or by administering controls to the standby Reboiler B.
• Williams Olefins did not perform a hazard analysis and develop a procedure prior to the reboiler switchover operations on the day of the incident. When the operator opened the quench water valves, there were no safeguards to prevent high pressure on the shell side of the reboiler. Since the reboiler lacked adequate overpressure protection, introducing heat to the standby reboiler initiated the overpressure event that caused the reboiler to rupture catastrophically.

Unfortunately, too many times “Safety Culture” is often simply interpreted as “the way we do things around here,” or “how we behave when no one is watching.” The chemical process industry has defined process safety culture as “the common set of values, behaviors, and norms at all levels in a facility or in the wider organization that affect process safety.”

A solid indicator of an organization’s process safety culture is the quality of its written safety management programs. This includes documentation of process safety management procedures (including PHA, MOC, PSSR), operating procedures, and corporate policies. In addition, key individuals within the organization, ranging from the chief executive to the field operator, need to be educated on the comprehensive implementation of these safety programs. 

Improvement of an organization’s process safety culture begins with management. Managers can help to set a high bar for the organization’s commitment to effectively implementing safety management programs and company expectations.

Lessons from the Williams Olefins Geismar plant incident can apply to other organizations. Some of the best practices that emerge include:

• The need for a thorough and well documented safety management system/program
• Effective implementation of that system/program principles
• It pays off to always either meet or exceed regulations, industry codes and standards, and best practices, despite the time and (minor) cost commitment
• Verify the facility complies with company standards and procedures through vehicles such as audits and tracking indicators
• Assess and strengthen the organizational safety culture including the organization’s commitment to process safety

Development of easy to interpret process safety metrics will reinforce a process safety culture. Management must also promote a belief that incidents are preventable, improvement is continuous, and that policies and procedures will be enforced. By measuring and analyzing process safety metrics, weaknesses in a company’s process safety management program can be identified. Taking proactive steps to strengthen safety culture will help prevent the vast majority of process safety incidents.

Partial or ineffective implementation of PSM programs such as MOCs, PSSRs, PHAs, safeguard evaluations, and procedure development programs can cause significant hazards to be overlooked.  This can then lead, as was the case with Williams Olefins, over several years of accumulated deficient safety practices, to a catastrophic incident. 

Success in safety often depends on a high level of vigilance when implementing process safety management programs.

In order to find out how some of the various mistakes that occurred over time should have been addressed and prevented, click here. 

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