Process Safety

Process safety management comprises the systematic use of uniform instructions, practices, and specifications to achieve and maintain safe and reliable production. The fundamental components include our organization, resources, management processes, people and equipment performance, the prevailing safety culture, and documented regulations and practices (for a list of regulations, refer to Occupational Safety). It covers management of the hazards associated with the chemical and physical properties of the substances we handle in our oil, gas, and chemical activities. OMV and Borealis process large quantities of flammable and/or toxic materials under high pressures and temperatures that, if not properly handled, could potentially lead to serious process safety incidents. In a worst-case scenario, leaks, fires, or explosions could also cause fatalities. In addition, this could result in a substantial disruption of the supply to customers along with additional costs.

Management and Due Diligence Processes

OMV has implemented comprehensive measures to ensure process safety.

Risk Assessments

Process safety risks are systematically assessed through a variety of process hazard assessments such as HAZOP (Hazard and Operability) studies, QRAs (Quantitative Risk Assessments), and risk assessments according to the Seveso Directive, the main EU regulation dealing with the control of onshore major accident hazards involving dangerous substances.

Prior to start-up of a new facility, after major modifications, or following a turnaround, we conduct an independent pre-start-up safety review to ensure that the facility is safe for start-up and operations.

Emergency Management Plans

Process safety events could at times affect communities in the vicinity of our operations. For this reason, we have robust emergency management plans in place which are coordinated with the surrounding communities.

Different levels of emergency management plans outline roles and responsibilities, structures, communications, and the interfaces required for emergency and incident management teams. Emergency response plans include specific emergency procedures and alerting and notification requirements to ensure that emergency response is managed in a coordinated manner.

Inspection and Maintenance

Comprehensive inspection and maintenance programs are carried out by dedicated departments for inspection, maintenance, and plant integrity. These conduct regular inspections of process equipment, pipelines, tanks, and more, and manage safety equipment testing as well as plant maintenance and turnarounds.

Investigations and Audits

All incidents are identified and reported in an appropriate and timely manner. Work-related incidents with potential consequences for people, environment, assets, or reputation are adequately investigated to determine direct causes, root causes, and systemic causes to learn from and prevent the recurrence of similar incidents. Tier 1 and Tier 2 process safety events provide baseline performance information and are measured each year for a consistent overview of the Company’s process safety performance. In addition to Tier 1 and 2 process safety incidents, we monitor Tier 3 process safety events for a better assessment of the critical barriers. The monitoring and reporting of Tier 3 events provides an overview of challenges to safety systems to identify and correct weaknesses within the barriers at facility level.

Training

Employee competence in the field of process safety is ensured by a well-defined training plan as well as continuous communication of process safety topics and sharing of lessons learned and other relevant process safety information. Scenario-based emergency drills involving the site emergency management team are conducted quarterly in the refineries in addition to regular drills by the fire service.

We have set up an OMV Group Process Safety Network, creating an online collaboration platform, including a reference library, discussion board, and other features. We host regular virtual sessions for exchanging process safety knowledge across the Group, with participants from a variety of OMV countries working in different fields of expertise to foster continual learning. Top management participation in these online sessions sends a clear message that process safety is important and demonstrates process safety leadership and commitment.

2021 Actions

In 2021, we saw an increasing trend in the number of Tier 1 and Tier 2 PSEs¹ Tier 1 and Tier 2 process safety events classified according to API RP 754 compared to previous years. This reflects the increased number of reporting sites, in particular chemical sites, due to the integration of Borealis.

The following key activities were carried out across the Group in 2021:

Process Safety Events, Tier 1 and Tier 2

Number of events

• A Group-wide process safety knowledge- and experience-sharing platform was established, with quarterly half-day events where up to 200 individuals participate in virtual meetings and presentations, including senior management contributions.
• A register containing risk reduction measures identified in various process hazard analyses (PHAs), assessments, and safety studies was established in each operated production unit. This will be populated and will provide a consolidated overview to support prioritization and the development of risk reduction plans.
• Process safety management assessments were conducted in two refineries as well as in Group Process Safety by an external process safety consultant. In addition, two internal major accident event audits were performed remotely due to COVID‑19 travel restrictions. Borealis Blue Audits are an internal audit of a location’s HSE systems and requirements. In 2021, these were conducted in Taylorsville (North Carolina), Rockport (New Jersey), Beringen (Belgium), Grand-Quevilly (France), and the Linz catalyst plant and INNOTECH in Austria. Four audits were also performed at internal and external hydrocarbons logistics installations.
• Based on lessons from the fire at the Stenungsund cracker in 2020, Borealis rolled out a risk reduction program, including elements such as improving process safety competence, enhancing the project hazard review process, and initiating actions to reduce the risk landscape of sites, as well as rolling out a Group-wide assessment of the protection layers for large machines.
• Borealis defined standardized scenarios and/or safeguarding concepts for the installation of main equipment.
• Borealis published and began the roll-out of a new instruction for irreversible line breaking. Irreversible line breaking means breaking of the primary enclosure using invasive methods that cannot be reversed, for example through drilling, or cold or hot cuts in pipelines or other equipment.
• Borealis promoted process safety skills, despite the limitations caused by COVID‑19, by conducting process safety in design training and hazard study leader training, as well as rolling out the OMV Group’s process safety basics e-learning.

Outlook

To continue to improve our process safety performance, we will take the following actions in the coming years:

• We will continue to thoroughly analyze and learn from process safety events and promote the sharing of knowledge across all our divisions.
• We will extend our set of process safety KPIs by Tier 4 indicators and put additional focus on leading indicators like operational discipline and the performance of our management systems.
• We aim to reduce the number of process safety events at all our sites across the globe. Our continued efforts will focus on process hazard analyses (PHAs), the implementation of technical risk reduction measures identified in those PHAs, audits and other process safety assessments, while maintaining and monitoring the performance of existing safety barriers.
• We will continue to develop and execute process safety roadmaps at facility level.
• We are currently working to enhance our processes and tools to identify and assess hazards more effectively and address these risks in a systematic way.
• We continually improve our training offerings and will emphasize process safety content to build process safety competence and culture in the workforce and increase risk awareness.
• Borealis will focus on developing an integrated process safety road map for polyolefins (POs) and hydrocarbons (HCs) to define current and upcoming process safety initiatives for Borealis Group Process Safety, Operations Polyolefins, and Operations Hydrocarbons.
• Borealis will also conduct internal health checks on process-safety-related elements and include a process safety review in the Borealis Blue Audit.