Materials Today: Proceedings 44 (2021) 4898–4902

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Materials Today: Proceedings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr

Hazard identification and risk assessment with controls (Hirac) in oil

industry – A proposed approach
Mohammed Ismail Iqbal a, Osama Isaac b, Ibrahim Al Rajawy c, Shamsuddin Khuthbuddin c, Ali Ameen b
a
Lincoln University College, Malaysia
b
Centre of Post-Graduation Studies, Lincoln University College, Malaysia
c
Business Department, UTAS, Oman

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: From the annual reports of bench marked companies from 2016 to 2018, also from the case studies avail-
Received 16 August 2020 able approximate 100 disaster cases were analyzed in knowing the possible hazard during drilling. The
Received in revised form 21 November 2020 outcome indicates the change in control measures that is suggested in-order to have safe and healthy
Accepted 28 November 2020
work environment at work place which in turn helps in preparing the risk register. In oil industry Risk
Available online 13 January 2021
Assessment needs to be performed on steady and systematic or regular basis. The goal of risk assessment
is to identify the hazards, to determine the rating of various risks with controls, to revise the risk controls
Keywords:
implementation from the previous sessions of risk assessment. Risk assessment process provides a
Risk management
Risk assessment
method for assessing the likelihood of health, safety and environmental impacts.
Hazard assessment This paper highlights in order to know the details of hazard identification, its assessment and with con-
Control measures trols includes: hazard Identification- finding potential hazards, defining the risks and rating which is
linked to the hazard based on severity, frequency and probability. Hazard Control -controlling of hazards
and associated risks with the hazard. Control Measures- providing information on training, supervision
on the hazard, education, analyzing the risks, controls measure for the employees affected by the hazards
with evaluation of hazard.
Furthermore, an example is shown how to do or calculate the quantitative risk assessment for the var-
ious hazards that comes across various operations in hydrocarbon industry.
Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Confer-
ence on Advances in Materials Processing & Manufacturing Applications.

1. Introduction of local operating Management system (LOMS) requirement for

Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment with controls
(HIRAC) is a structured process to identify hazards and to specify
actions to mitigate these hazards for a work activity or task with
controls.
Risk assessment process provides a method for assessing the
likelihood of health, safety and environmental impacts of potential
operating risk events. It enables a common approach to the prior-
itization and management of risk [2].
An effective Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment with
controls HIRAC process includes a documented system as a part
Abbreviations: IOGP, International Association of Oil & Gas Producers; HEMS,
Health Environment and Management Systems; LWDC, Lost work day cases.
control of work. The procedure clearly defines the individual roles
and responsibilities for its application. Personnel assigned with the
capability to carry out their assigned responsibilities. Documented
requirements in training and minimum capabilities for everyone
involved in this process [3].
The qualitative risk assessment is most widely used techniques
and is most a group effort, involving experts with various compe-
tencies and experience in factors. Sometimes company or individ-
ual have to reply on the information which qualitative may not
give so it is better to go with alternate method.
The quantitative technique is largely used in the engineering
and fabrication phases. Over the last decades, there have been
improvements in some of the aspects which largely come from
[10]:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.11.800
2214-7853/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Advances in Materials Processing & Manufacturing Applications.
M. Ismail Iqbal, O. Isaac, I. Al Rajawy et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 44 (2021) 4898–4902

 the experience of data size and its availability developed
dramatically
 advancements in technologies like software’s and hardware
(sensors)
 improvements in data accessibility and storage, computational
power and data availability
 perfections of the analytical models
It is utmost to select a technique of hazard identification and
methodology of risk assessment which offers sufficient level/depth
of analysis, which provides awareness, understanding and knowl-
edge of the drilling well which leads to blowout or any undesirable
results.
2. Problem identification
2.1. Identifying the hazards
human factors at work place are ruling the prevention of accidents.
However, it is not always similar in most of the cases. Inadequate
training, lack of supervision and competence are the reasons are
failure to finding the hazards and risk assessment. The recent
trends show that most of the accidents take place in oil industry
are largely in drilling, production domain.
3.1. Accident in oil industry
If we see the above graph most of the accidents in Oil and Gas
Industry are in upstream largely related to drilling. To minimize
the accidents proper risk assessment, management and planning
is to be done (Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3).
Further it is mentioned that Personal injury performance shown
increasing by 3% compared to 2017.
Fig. 4 below shows IOGP member companies reported a total of
25,195 days lost through injuries [9].

Risk evaluation and assessment is the efficient way of evalua-  The offshore loss work day cases (LWDC) severity is 11% higher
tion of risk associated with the hazard which is identified. than onshore
In the identification of hazards, the main objective is to ensure,  The loss work day cases (LWDC) severity for contractors is 45%
all possible hazards are identified. Processes that can be utilized higher than for company employees.
are:
4. Methodology
 Previous experience of accidents or occurrences.
 Experienced offsite specialists (Consultants). After the identification is done the rank of risk is done in order
 Fault tree analysis to determine underlying hazards that might to do the proper assessment. The process of ranking the risk is
not be evident at first glance.
 Safety Statistics.
 Work Process evaluation.
 Significant incident, near miss or accident reports.
 Consultation with experienced employees.

Dividing the work place e.g.-by activities, equipment, geograph-

ical area, specific job activity. Processes can be broken up into
nodes and then each node can be examined independently as to
what can go wrong. All hazards are to be identified whether
minor/major or likely/less likely and findings to be recorded.

2.2. Assessment of risk and its ranking

The goal of each risk assessment is to identify hazards, deter-

mine risk ranking with controls, and to revise the implementation
of risk controls from the previous risk assessment sessions. Risk
assessment is the process of assessing the probability of existence
Fig. 1. Accidents in domain area in 2016 (Source: IOGP bench mark report) [8].
of specific consequences or undesirable events of known severity.

 Identification of risks which are the most need of attention and

option for achieving risk reduction
 Identification of risks which needs to be careful ongoing man-
agement, the nature of ongoing management and its indicators
which shows that the risk shall be managed.
 Identification of triggers which might be useful in order to mon-
itor the hazard and initiate actions if elimination is not feasible.

3. Back ground

Hydrocarbon industry is divided into three main activities that

are downstream, middle stream and upstream Most critical opera-
tion and high risky operations are usually centered activities of
upstream.
Oil and Gas Industry is exposed for low probability and has high
impact on accidents. However good (HEMS) Health, Safety, Envi-
ronmental management systems in place, knowing the risk before
planning for drilling, knowing the risk location during drilling, Fig. 2. Accidents in domain area in 2017 (Source: IOGP bench mark report) [8].

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M. Ismail Iqbal, O. Isaac, I. Al Rajawy et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 44 (2021) 4898–4902

Fig. 5. Risk management proposed plan.

Fig. 3. Accidents in domain area in 2018 (Source: IOGP bench mark report) [8].

Fig. 4. Lost work day cases (International Association of Oil and Gas Producers
Fig. 6. Hierarchy of risks control/safety triangle.
report).

Table 1
carried-out by bearing in mind the occurrence probability of indi- Proposed hierarchy control.
vidual hazard, potential consequence and how people expose to
Method Risk reduction or effectiveness
the hazard. Risk of any hazard is reliant on the chance with which
it occurs (probability) and the occurrence of impact (consequence) Elimination 100%
Substitution 75%
and exposure to hazard.
Separation 50%
Risk SCORE = CONSEQUENCE X EXPOSURE X PROBABILITY [6] Administration 30%
Training 20%
 Consequence is size of loss or damage. It is the degree of harm PPE 5%
that might be caused to the people exposed to hazard.
 Exposure is how long people are exposed to hazard. systems where the risk of injury will substantially decrease
 Probability is the chance a person shall be harmed when (Table 1).
exposed. Proposed hierarchy control (Prevention, controls and ACTION
Plans)
Risk Ranking shall be determined by means of quantitative and Risk prevention and control is an ACTION PLAN of the mining
qualitative. The important determination in Hazard identification, establishment to eliminate or reduce the risk to improve work-
Ranking and Risk Assessment is to draw and implement the plans place safety and health.
which will help in controlling the hazards (Fig. 5). Methods of Risk Reduction: Based on the past experience,
Control of Risk Management ‘‘general/Existing Hierarchy of principles for risk control have been developed in the form of a risk
controls” [5] control hierarchy, with effectiveness of each method given as % as
We are reminded that risk management principally must first shown below.
focus on: Potential to reduce or minimize or eliminate the risk using hier-
 risk elimination, archy of controls have to be considered. The effectiveness of it is
 risk substitution, and given as percentage.
 risk engineering controls
before we consider accepting the operational risk and agree to  First preference must always be given to physically removing
pursue to mitigate the risk, and to isolate the risk and putting in the identified risks and hazards from our work processes, before
place administrative risk controls, as illustrated in Fig. 6 below: we are considering to substitute or replace the hazards.
Protecting the workforce and others who may be effected  Re-engineering and/or process improvements should always be
begins with controlling the exposures to occupational hazards considered, if the outcome improves the safety of workflow or
The thought behind this hierarchy is control methods at the the tasks to be worked on. Any simplified and/or integrated
topmost are effective and protective than those present at bottom. solution are preferred to either remove and eliminate, or
Following this hierarchy usually leads to implementation of safer replace the risk.

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M. Ismail Iqbal, O. Isaac, I. Al Rajawy et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 44 (2021) 4898–4902

 Risk removal may include the physical risk relocation to other
confined processes, where and when the relocated risk can be
mitigated with lower or no hazard exposure.
 Effective re-engineering of the work process and/or equipment,
including aiming at simplification and increasing the robustness
of the process, may also lead to notable operational improve-
ments in the rig operation performance, which then will
improve the safe and overall rig operation efficiency.
 To isolate the rig floor crew from a hazard while working on the
rig floor, may suggest creating (roofed) safety zones on the rig
floor, however, all reasonably practicable steps to eliminate
the hazard altogether, must be considered first.
5. Risk assessment results
The assessment must include:
 the purpose (does it have hydrocarbon or not)
 detail geological information (depth and formation types)
 the hazardous chemicals from the well and formation
 petro-physical properties of well (depth, temperature, pressure,
fracture gradient and intensity)
 different hazard that take place at workplace (Physical, Chemi-
cal, Fire Explosion, Occupational, Health,..)
Inputs to the risk assessment should include:
 geological and geophysical exploration and its interpretation
 offset well review.

From the global report of benchmarked companies and from the 6. Risk assessment technique
case studies it is found that hydrocarbon industry construction
includes drilling, production, exploration and drilling project cost Estimation of Consequence, Probability and Exposure for each
overruns and there can be labor productivity losses are due to defi- of the previously identified hazard and assigning them quantitative
ciency of management in time, quality, material, tools, production, values.
scope, equipment, scaffold, cost, and mostly lack in leadership.
6.1. Qualitative assessment
5.1. Risk assessment for poor project results – Management side [3,7]
Qualitative assessments are widely used in oil and gas risk man-
There are approximately 6 reasons that leads to poor project agement, are important first step in risk analysis procedure. They
results which are listed below: add consistency and arrangement to basic risk assessment method
1. Lack of experienced owner or contractor in terms of quality [1].
and management capabilities. Common qualitative assessments approaches are:
2. Lack of clear definition in lines of authority, discipline, inef-
fective control of project scope and management responsibilities. a. HAZID
3. Difficulties of expansions to current operating plants. b. HAZOP
4. Project level and vicinity not well understood. c. Bow-tie Analysis
5. Lack of familiarity with the governmental regulations, safety d. FMEA
requirements, climate, environmental constraints, construction e. JHA
practices.
6. Lack of suitable risk analysis knowledge. Qualitative assessments do not quantify the effectiveness of
hazard identification and thus rating the risk is sometimes difficult.
5.2. Risk assessment (Surface & subsurface Conditions) – Technical High Consequences and Low probability events are not defined as
side [4,7] well. Quantitative approach is required.

During designing a well, consideration of risk assessment of 6.2. Quantitative assessment

subsurface condition should be taken in account. A team consisting
of (e.g. Petroleum Engineers, Drilling Engineering, Production Engi- Quantitative risk assessment includes the task with data-having
neers, Geologists, Geophysicists, Reservoir Engineer, Completion numeric values in the assessment of consequence and probability.
Engineer) should undertake the assessment. It follows initial qualitative assessment in focus to the priority of

Table 2
Risk register criteria and acceptable scale.

RISK REGITER
Consequence Criteria Scale Exposure Criteria Scale Probability Criteria Scale
Many Dead 5 Continuous 10 Expected 10
Only one Dead 1 Daily (Regularly) 5 likely 7
chance of Fatality 0.3 Weekly (often) 3 Rare but chance of possiblity 3
One Permanent Disability 0.1 Monthly (unusual) 2.5 Possible only when in remotely 2
Small chance of fatality 0.1 Yearly (occasionally) 2 Conceived but unlikely 1
Many lost time Injuries 0.01 Once in 5 years 1.5 Not possible practically 0.5
One lost time injury 0.001 Once in 10 years 0.5 Not possible virtually 0.1
small injury 0.0001 Once in 100 years 0.02
Scale of Risk Rating
Intolerable Risk >90
Very High Risk 75–89
High Risk 45–74
Substantial Risk 20–44
Moderate Risk 10–19
Risk Perhaps acceptable 0–9

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M. Ismail Iqbal, O. Isaac, I. Al Rajawy et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 44 (2021) 4898–4902

Table 3
Some causes of hazard in oil industry with risk level (Example).

Workactivities Cause of hazard Associated effects Consequence Exposure Probability Risk

1 MaintenanceOperation
2 MaintenanceOperation
3 Vehicle movement
4 –
level
Using tongs and slips during drilling, trip-in Injury to personnel 5 10 7 350
and out
Slip/trip due to mud/oil Physical Injury 1 10 7 70
Fire due to spark Fire Hazard 5 5 3 75
Cyclone Damage to plant, Equipment, 5 2 3 50
Physical Injury

the highest risks. Quantitative risk assessment accounts multiply-
ing of effects between several events [1].
Common quantitative assessment approaches are:
a. Layers of protection analysis
b. FMECA
c. Event Tree Analysis
d. Fault Tree Analysis
e. QRA
6.3. Risk register for various hazard at work place
There are many methods for execution of risk assessment and
the proposed one below is the best Proposed method which will
help in having control measures (this is prepared in consultation
with the company) (Table 2. Table 3).
There are approximately 40–50 causes of hazard have been
notified during the survey between year 2016–2018 and while
reading the literature review. The above methodology will act as
a control measure to ensure the risk level and helps in avoiding
the occurrence of risk.
7. Conclusion
The request of quantitative risk assessment is needed nowadays
in most of the regulatory documentation which will help in elimi-
nating the risk or pre-planning can be done to avoid the risk.
More extensive theories, models and various strategies applied
in the management should be applied for research because of its
complex business nature and risk factor. Since most the risk assess-
ment/management are addressing the problems related to com-
mercial part but hardly few software’s are available to solve the
technical challenges being faced in industry.
The proposed approach/method above helps in finding and
evaluating of risk will help the organization knowing the impor-
tance of any activity before hazard taking place.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Mohammed Ismail Iqbal: Conceptualization, Methodology,
Writing - original draft. Osama Isaac: Investigation, Supervision,
Visualization. Ibrahim Al Rajawy: . Shamsuddin Khuthbuddin:
Writing - review & editing. Ali Ameen: .
Declaration of Competing Interest
I am thankful to International Association of Oil and Gas produc-
ers who gave an access to their report.
References
[1] IOGP Report 2018sh, ‘‘Safety performance indicators – 2018 data – High
potential event reports,” no. June, 2019, [Online]. Available: https://www.iogp.
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[2] IOGP Report 2018sh, ‘‘Safety performance indicators – 2018 data – High
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[3] Y. Zhang, L. Xing, Research on risk management of petroleum operations,
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j.egypro.2011.03.400.
[4] B. Vamanu, A. Necci, S. Tatantola, E. Krausmann, Titled ‘‘JRC Technical Reports,
‘‘Offshore Risk Assessment- An Overview of methods and tools” in year 2016.
[5] IOGP Report 2018sh, ‘‘Safety performance indicators – 2018 data – High
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org/bookstore/product/iogp-report-2018sh-safety-performance-indicators-
2018-data-high-potential-event-reports/.
[6] [6] Report on Disaster Management from DM Institute.
[7] [7] Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment report, Document No; N-04600-
GN1613 A462124 by NOPSEMA, 18th May 2020.
[8] [8] IOGP benchmarked report 2016-2019.
[9] IOGP Report 2018sh, ‘‘Safety performance indicators – 2018 data – High
potential event reports,” no. June, 2019, [Online]. Available: https://www.iogp.
org/bookstore/product/iogp-report-2018sh-safety-performance-indicators-
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[10] G. Note, ‘‘Core concepts,” pp. 1–17, 2020.
Further Reading
[1] OISD, Case studies.

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