About this Training Course

As a result of major incidents such as the Buncefield storage depot explosion in the UK, it is now expected that achieving tolerable risk is justified by a rigorous method. The method – Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) – will assist organisations with the analysis and assessment of identified process plant hazards.

This method can answer key questions like ‘Do we have enough controls?’ or ‘Are they sufficiently effective?’ It is often used as a follow-up to a HAZOP study to confirm the qualitative judgement and decisions made by the team. It is considered to be a semi-quantitative technique since it uses ‘order of magnitude’ estimates of risk reduction of each protection layer and is therefore less time-consuming than using Fully Quantified Risk Analysis (QRA).

This 2 full-day course will equip participants with an understanding of how a hazard scenario is defined and its severity is categorized to set a tolerable frequency. The participants will learn to determine how many Independent Protection Layers (IPL) are required to achieve the tolerable frequency, and how to specify an IPL.

All of these activities are covered by a tutored exercise and group work. Only simple numeracy skills with an understanding of scientific notation, for example, one in a thousand expressed as 1.0E-03, are required. The course materials will include a copy of the presentation slides, comprehensive notes and recommended further reading. Teaching will be delivered via 2 full-days, with informative videos and plenty of opportunities to ask questions.