Process safety

Employees at the Corpus Christi Liquefaction facility

We oversee process safety throughout the entire life cycle of our facilities — from initial planning through construction, operations and ongoing maintenance. Our approach involves a comprehensive understanding of potential issues, their locations and timing, with the ultimate objective of preventing events from occurring. Regular hazard analyses are conducted to identify and assess potential process safety hazards. We then implement suitable controls to mitigate risks and periodically revalidate and update the analyses to ensure alignment with current designs.

Process safety tracking and reporting

We monitor four tiers of process safety leading and lagging indicators, aligning with industry standards. This practice facilitates the implementation of corrective actions, continuous improvement and the prevention of future occurrences. Additionally, we track high-potential events to sustain a proactive and forward-looking approach to process safety management. Regular internal and external audits of safety processes and performance are conducted. 
External audits specifically target key process safety elements, including process hazard analysis, safe work practices, management of change, mechanical integrity and leadership.
 

Process safety assessments and audits

Process safety undergoes external audit assessment by the American Petroleum Institute (API). Our assets perform monthly self-assessments and report the findings to the operations leadership team, a practice that applies to all our sites.

CIMS includes a formal Asset Integrity Standard that defines the minimum requirements for our strategies and processes to achieve and ensure the integrity and reliability of critical assets throughout their life cycle, from design to construction, installation, operations and ongoing maintenance, and decommissioning. According to the standard, business units must perform integrity management of assets in accordance with a written asset integrity management plan, which includes:

  • Site-specific application of required asset integrity procedures including best-in-class engineering and design specifications, compliance with regulatory requirements and design codes, and implementation of strict quality control and quality assurance processes.
     
  • Implementation of risk identification, avoidance and mitigation processes.
     
  • Integrity test inspection programs following recognized industry standards including at commissioning and start-up and on an ongoing basis throughout operations, following a risk-based schedule. Examples of testing programs include but are not limited to smart pigging, nondestructive testing — such as infrared and ultrasonic testing, vibration analysis and visual inspections of in situ piping for corrosion management and abnormal piping conditions, commissioning leak detection and pressure testing, safety-integrity-level loop testing, and tan delta and tip-up testing of electrical equipment to monitor health of electrical insulation. We also undertake routine preventative maintenance and calibration tests of instrumentation.
     
  • Development of specific asset integrity key performance indicators (KPIs), data and reporting requirements. KPIs can include frequency of loss of primary containment events and upset conditions that could impact integrity, number of equipment repairs and deferred repairs, number of inspection events and average time to correct equipment deficiencies.
     
  • Approved procedures for continuous improvement reviews, corrective action development and implementation, and root-cause analyses for near misses and actual incidents.
     
  • Change management processes and documentation.
     
  • Training and qualification requirements for relevant employees and contractors, including those engaged in testing, inspections and quality management reviews.
     
  • Decommissioning plans that comply with company standards and regulatory requirements.

    Asset integrity activities are overseen by the Senior Vice President of Operations. Compliance with our Asset Integrity Standard and asset integrity management plans is evaluated following the governance standard of CIMS, which requires regular departmental self-assessments and internal, independent functional verification assessments. Additionally, we conduct internal audits based on assessed risk profiles and obtain periodic third-party audits for specific focus areas, such as turnaround maintenance audits, American Petroleum Institute process safety management audits and tank inspections.