The oil and petrochemical industry accounts for a major share of the manufacturing sector in Singapore. The industry, however, is potentially more hazardous than many other industries. This is because many feedstocks, intermediate products and finished products are flammable and their inventories involve large quantities. Some of the process operations involve high temperature and pressure. Hence fires and explosions are always potential hazards. Other potential hazards associated with the industry arise from the handling and storage of toxic and corrosive chemicals.

A total of six accidents were reported by the oil and petrochemical industry in 1996. The accident statistics from 1993 to 1996 are shown in Table 1. Out of the 47 cases reported in the four-year period, two were fatal accidents. When compared with the total number of accidents reported to the Department of Industrial Safety (4,306) in 1996, the number of accidents reported by the oil and petrochemical industry constituted only a small percentage.

The accident rates for the four-year period between 1993 to 1996 hovered within the range of 1.2 to 0.4 accidents per million man-hours worked. These accident rates are comparatively lower than the corresponding figures for the manufacturing industries and for all industries. In 1996, the accident rate for the manufacturing industries and all industries, respectively, stood at 2.5 and 2.7 accidents per million man-hours worked (See Table 2).

Unlike the accident rate, the severity of accidents in the oil and petrochemical industry fluctuated sharply from year to year, as shown in Table 3. The highest accident-related loss of working days for the four-year period was recorded in 1993, when 451 man-days were lost per million man- hours worked. The high figure stemmed from a fatal accident which occurred in that year. This figure was much higher than the corresponding figure for all industries in 1993, which was 448 man-days per million man-hours worked. In 1994, the accident-related loss of working days for the oil and petrochemical industry was 374, which was marginally higher that for all industries, i.e. 362 man-days per million man-hours worked. The accident-related loss of working days for the oil and petrochemical industry in 1995 and 1996, respectively, were 7 and 6 man-days lost per million man- hours worked. These figures are significantly lower than those for all industries, which were 315 man-days in 1995 and 353 man-days in 1996. The trend for the oil and petrochemical industry reveals that accident-related loss of working days is greatly influenced by the number of fatal accidents.

The oil and petrochemical industry recorded an accident rate of 0.4 accidents per million man-hours worked in 1996. This is about 85% lower than the corresponding rate for all industries, which stood at 2.7 accidents per million man-hours worked. Perhaps the most important reason for such a low accident rate is that, given its hazardous nature, the industry has to be safe to be viable. In addition, several other reasons contribute to the low accident rate in the oil and petrochemical industry:

a)The special attention paid to accident prevention by this industry. Because of the hazardous nature of this industry, those involved realise that any accident could have a disastrous consequence.

b)Hazardous materials are contained mostly in closed systems. This facilitates control and reduces exposure.

c)Workers are trained in safety. These factors must have contributed to the good safety performance of the oil and petrochemical industry. It is noteworthy that two out of the six winners of the Ministry of Labour's OSH Excellence Award in 1996 were from the oil and petrochemical industry. The OSH Excellence Award is only granted to companies that have been awarded the Gold Award for good safety performance in three consecutive years.

The oil and petrochemical industry has placed high priority emphasis on ensuring process safety, as process-related accidents are likely to be serious and extensive in nature. They can involve fires, explosions, and exposure to toxic chemicals. This effort has minimised occurrence of "process-related" accidents. Nor can the oil and petrochemical industry take accidents that are non-process-related lightly, either. In fact, the two fatal accidents that occurred between 1993 and 1996 were non- process-related. Both of these accidents involved contract workers. It has also been noted that a large percentage of other accidents involved contract workers; hence the safety of contract workers cannot be ignored. To enhance these contract workers' awareness of the hazards at the workplace, the Department of Industrial Safety in conjunction with the oil and petrochemical industry introduced a safety orientation training course for contract workes in 1990. The oil and petrochemical industry needs to step up their vigilance in the supervision of contract workers as they carry out their work.

Although the oil and petrochemical industry have channelled a great deal of effort into the prevention of both process-related and non-process- related accidents, the scale and technical complexity of the modern plants have developed to such an extent that potential hazards can no longer be detected easily by a walk-through type of inspection. The international trend is for management of hazardous installations, such as oil refineries and petrochemical plants, to adopt a holistic approach to control of the major hazards associated with the process operation. A holistic approach entails the setting up of a process safety management that focuses on the following areas:

a)process technology and operation

b)materials used

c)training and supervision of personnel

d)maintenance, alteration and quality assurance of equipment and facilities

e)emergency preparedness.

In line with this trend, the Department of Industrial Safety is promoting adoption of this holistic approach in the oil and petrochemical industry since 1993. The oil and petrochemical industry was requested to implement process safety management. This approach has received the industry's support. In 1993 the Department of Industrial Safety worked closely with the oil and petrochemical industry to produce the Recommended Practice on Process Safety Management, similar to that of the OSHA 1919.119 The Recommended Practice, which contains the essential elements for the management of process safety, forms the baseline standard against which each company can review its existing practices and can then make improvements in its system, where necessary.

In conclusion, it should be emphasised that any accident occurring in the oil and petrochemical industry is of concern, whether process-related or not. The oil and petrochemical industry should not be complacent with the good safety record, but should continue to strive for excellence in safety. The implementation of process safety management system is the right step in this direction.

Table 1. Number of accidents reported by the oil and petrochemical industry

( ) denotes the number of fatal accidents

Table 2. Comparison of accident rates per million manhours worked

Table 3. Comparison of accident-related loss of working days per million man-hours worked

Go Heng Huat
Executive Engineer
Department of Industrial Safety
Ministry of Labour
18 Havelock Road; #05-02
Singapore 059764
Republic of Singapore

Updated by PAP/SUT/TRS. Approved by BKL. Last updated on 19 January 2001

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