Safety Critical Elements and the Identification of Them
Updated: Jun 12, 2023
The identification of safety-critical elements is of vital importance to ensure system safety. An operator company has recently given out a contract to ORS to perform a detailed assessment of safety-critical components. The contract also involves another thing. Namely, to map SCE's to the relevant Performance Standards (PS) on a number of installations in the North Sea. The assessment is based on functionality, hazardous area classification, and potential for loss of containment.
The identification of Safety Critical Elements (SCE) is an integral part of managing major accident risks for oil production facilities. A Safety Critical Element (SCE) is classified as a piece of equipment or structure whose failure can lead to a major hazard or whose purpose is to prevent or mitigate a major accident.
Since 2009, ORS has completed multiple assignments for operator- and engineering companies for the identification and classification of SCEs. The assignments have included offshore facilities, subsea installations as well as onshore production facilities.
Feel free to contact us here at ORS if you have any questions or comments regarding this topic. Or perhaps you would like to know more about some other topics such as HAZOPs, FMEA, system reliability, RAM analysis, etc? We would love to help you.