Rash of Refinery Incidents?

Process Safety with Trish and Traci Discusses Refinery Incidents

The podcast audio of this discussion is below (Spotify):

In the podcast, they discuss potential reasons for 11 fires in 60 days at refineries around the world. Topics include possible deferred maintenance and changes in crude oil that could contribute to the causes of fires.

Additional Ideas

Before we discuss the potential causes for these incidents, we should consider several things…

1. These were different refineries run by different companies.
2. Changes in operations since March (the start of the oil price surge and the closing of the Straits of Hormuz) have only been three to five months until the fires. Is that enough of a delay to really cause serious process safety incidents due to delayed maintenance?
3. Wouldn’t we have a better idea of the reasons for the accidents if we had advanced root cause analysis results to evaluate the causes?

Advanced Root Cause Analysis

To understand the human performance and equipment reliability root causes of refinery fires, process safety experts should be applying an advanced root cause analysis system – TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis.

How does TapRooT® RCA help process safety experts find incident root causes?

First, it helps them learn the real, fixable causes of human errors by using an embedded expert system based on expert human factors knowledge that guides the investigator. To see how this works, see these articles:

• Guided Root Cause Analysis
• Where Did the Human Factors Knowledge Embedded in the TapRooT® System Come From?

Second, the TapRooT® Root Cause System includes a technique – The Equifactor® Equipment Troubleshooting System that was developed with the help of equipment reliability guru Hienz Bloch, based on his troubleshooting tables. To find out more about how the technique can help your process safety experts find the root causes of equipment failures involved in process safety accidents, see THIS LINK.

If you are a process safety expert interested in improving your root cause analysis knowledge, I would suggest two things.

First, attend one of our public 5-Day TapRooT® Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader Courses. See the dates and locations of our upcoming public 5-Day TapRooT® Courses, CLICK HERE.

Second, consider attending the upcoming 2027 Global TapRooT® Summit. What Knowledge might you gain that will help you improve root cause analysis and process safety? First, there are six Best Practice Tracks shown below…

Each track has nine breakout session with particular discussions on topics to help you improve performance. These included sessions on:

• Fix Your Recurring Root Causes Workshop
• What Leaders Need to Know About Root Cause Analysis
• Make Your Root Cause Analysis Efficient Without Losing Depth
• The Hidden Impact of Fatigue
• Best Practices From thge Nuclear Navy for High Reliability
• Root Cause Analysis Success Stories
• Striving for High-Reliability in the Private Sector

That’s just a sample.

There are also five Keynote Speakers…

Who will share inspiration and knowledge to make performance improvement happen.

The Summit will be held on April 5-9, 2027, at the Margaritaville Resort, Lake Conroe, near Houston, Texas. For more information, CLICK HERE. To download the Summit Brochure, CLICK HERE.