Page 120 - Occupational Health & Safety, September 2017

FACILITY SAFETY
Rethinking Chemical Security Risks
There is a need for a value-driven security risk assessment in chemical clusters.
BY NIMA KHAKZAD, PIECTER VERMASS, AND GENSERIK RENIERS
hemical plants are basically attributed with large inventories of hazardous materials whose accidental or intentional release could result in catastrophic events. The
proximity of chemical plants to residential areas and transportation networks, specifically in industrial- ized and densely populated European countries such as Belgium, Germany, France, and The Netherlands, makes the consequences of such undesired releases even more catastrophic. Finally, the ever-increasing complexity and interdependencies in the chemical industry, particularly with the emergence of chemical industrial parks (chemical clusters) that incorporate a number of chemical plants within a tight neighbor- hood (e.g., Port of Rotterdam in The Netherlands), exacerbate the severity and the extent of potential consequences, e.g., via domino effects.
As opposed to safety issues in chemical plants, which can be a matter of random failures, human er- rors, negligence, or natural hazards, security issues such as terrorist attacks are caused by deliberate ac- tions of human agents with the possible intention of creating maximum damages. Compared to long-es- tablished regulations and state-of-the-art techniques in safety risk assessment of hazardous industries, the importance of security risk assessment was drawn into attention mainly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Nevertheless, according to a survey conducted in Belgium, in chemical companies the likelihood of extreme security issues such as terror- ist attacks has been deemed very low. The relatively recent security issues in two chemical plants in France in June 2015 and July 2015 have, however, exposed the vulnerability and attractiveness of chemical plants as potential targets for such intentional acts.
Security Risk Assessment Methods
For assessing security risks, the chemical industry needs methods that take into account that chemical plants are increasingly part of clusters of such plants and that incorporate the moral, societal, and econom- ic aspects of security policies.
The likelihood of a successful attack is an inter- twined function of the type of threats, possible attack scenarios, the vulnerability and the attractiveness of chemical plants, and the effectiveness of the security countermeasures (Figure 1(a)). However, mainly inspired by the security vulnerability assessment guidelines set forth by, among others, the Ameri- can Petroleum Institute (API, 2003), the majority of the developed techniques follow a linear approach
to security risk assessment (e.g., sequential scoring of threat, attractiveness, vulnerability, etc.) (Figure 1(b)). However, such linear approaches all short to taking into account the complex interdependencies prevailing in chemical clusters. These shortcomings hinder the application of traditional risk assessment methodologies to chemical clusters where a number of chemical plants are technically, operatively, strate- gically, or managerially dependent on one another. Furthermore, a majority of the developed security risk assessment methodologies are static in nature, only representing a snap-shot of a security issue. As a result, they are not capable of taking new in- formation (also known as precursors) into account to update the security risks and adjust the security management strategies accordingly.
(a) (b)
Figure 1. (a) The perceived interaction among the security risk parameters, (b) API methodology (2003) for security risk assessment
Society demands, moverover, a more moral sensi- tivity of industry in its policies to mitigate risks, that, as can be argued, will improve rather than frustrate traditional risk assessments that focus on only a ratio- nal (technical) idea of the risks.
A Proposed Conceptual Framework
For addressing the aforementioned drawbacks in se- curity risk assessment of chemical clusters, we pro- pose a framework (Figure 2) comprising ethical (α), technical (β), and economic (γ) aspects of security risk in chemical clusters with a particular emphasis on interdependencies, stakeholders, and societal val- ues. First, moral, technical, and economic risk param- eters need to be identified and processed. In Part 2, the risks will be calculated in a dynamic way, regard- ing both the single plants and the chemical cluster. In Part 3, the outcomes of the risk analysis will be used, in conjunction with moral and economic aspects and constraints, to set security management policies and enable security-informed decision making.
108 Occupational Health & Safety | SEPTEMBER 2017
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