OVERVIEW

Risk is present in every aspect of the life cycle of a facility. Therefore it requires us to identify the risks in every phase of the life cycle and develop methods to manage them. While life cycle risk management of sorts has been practised for many years, the adoption of the integrated approach to life cycle risk management is yet to become a standard practice in the industry.

The identification and active management of life cycle issues, is often undertaken too late in the project, when the final design has been approved for construction, or even later, when the facility is being built. This late assessment may find that risk from the operation of the facility falls in the "intolerable" range, when measured against corporate and regulatory requirements. This may necessitate a re-design, major modification and/or implementation of expensive hardware changes which ultimately leads to both schedule and capital expenditure blowouts. There may also be additional operating costs and production interruption costs.

Good risk management demands that potential problems are identified a priori in the project, starting right from the concept design/FEED stage.

Sometimes, risk management is seen in the context of an operating facility, with focus on operations and maintenance. While the operations phase is the longest in a facility life cycle, say 25 to 30 years compared to the 3 5 years for design and...