Job Requirements
A Process Safety Design Engineer prevents industrial incidents, such as fires, explosions, and toxic releases, by integrating safety principles into the design of all areas Oil and Gas manufacturing units starting from upstream, midstream and product solution area. He should be able to conduct HAZOP studies, Quantitative Risk Assessments (QRA), and ensure compliance with safety standards. Key responsibilities include managing hazardous materials containment and conducting safety reviews.
Key Responsibilities And Skills
- Risk Analysis & Identification: Identifying potential hazards (fire, explosion, toxicity) and evaluating risks using techniques like HAZOP, HAZID, LOPA and QRA.
- Design Safety Integration: Ensuring that process technology, design, and control systems inherently minimize risk.
- Safety Critical Elements (SCE): Identifying and ensuring the integrity of equipment designed to prevent, control, or mitigate hazards.
- Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring all designs meet international standards like NFPA, API, ASME, and IEC, as well as local regulations like OSHA's Process Safety Management (PSM).
- Developing critical documents such as Hazardous Area Classification, Fire & Gas (F&G) layouts, and Escape Route layouts, safety management systems, procedures, and reports.
- Safety System Design: Designing active and passive firefighting systems, emergency shutdown systems, and pressure relief/ flare systems.
- Inherently Safer Design (ISD): Applying principles like minimizing or substituting hazardous materials at the earliest design stages to eliminate risks before they are built.
- Sound knowledge in Emergency Shutdown Systems (ESD) and Safety Instrumented Functions (SIF) and Safety Integrity Level (SIL).
- Consequence Modeling: Using specialized software (e.g., PHAST) to simulate gas dispersion, explosion impacts, and thermal radiation to determine safe equipment spacing.
- ALARP Demonstrations: Formal reports proving that risks have been reduced to As Low As Reasonably Practicable
- Safety Philosophies: High-level documents defining the project's approach to fire protection, emergency isolation, and hazardous area classification.
Work Experience
Required Qualifications & Background
- Education: Bachelor's degree in Chemical, or Process Safety Engineering.
- Experience: Usually 5+ years of experience in Process Safety design, particularly in Oil & Gas, chemicals, or manufacturing.
- Software & Tools: Proficiency in simulation tools for dispersion, fire, and explosion modeling.
- Core Competencies: Strong analytical skills, communication, and the ability to influence design decisions.
Technical Tools & Software
Engineers to be conversant with specialized modeling and simulation software:
- PHAST (by DNV): Used for consequence modeling (dispersion, fire, and explosion analysis).
- AFT Fathom / Pipenet: For hydraulic calculations of firewater and safety systems.
- Flaresim: For modeling flare radiation and thermal effects.
- AutoCAD: For drafting safety layouts and P&IDs (Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams).
