Safety instrumented systems are now well recognized and utilized by various operational companies in oil and gas majorly in integrated plants such as refineries, upgraders and petrochemical plants based on the both reliability and availability of these systems to prevent and mitigate any risk associated with any high consequence initiating event. The SIS requirements are well developed and globally accepted within IEC61511 and ISA84.01 standards in which the safety lifecycle requirements have to be met. The initial implementation of SIS in each plant has always been a challenging program because it needs tremendous effort to develop processes and procedures to meet any single clause of the lifecycle. At the same time, following the engineering best practices is another key factor of success for this implementation.
However, in pipeline operations industry, there are additional aspects regarding risk management, design, operations and maintenance of the SIS, which have to be considered in addition to all code requirements and considerations on the integrated plants such as refineries, as mentioned above. These special considerations should not be underestimated and have to be dealt with as special requirements for the industry. These aspects raise sets of technical challenges for any implementation initiative and other planning or execution challenges which are directly related to the safety lifecycle.
