Our safety team is probably one of the most diverse teams in Citec. In the team of 12 Citecians, we have experts and designers from Finland, Germany, Honduras, India, Nigeria and Spain.
The key focus of the safety team is to ensure that our plants and products are safe for the people operating the plant and also for the environment. Plants and products need to be safe from damage resulting from an accident caused by an explosion or fire.
Usually the safety team works in close collaboration with the plant design team. They do fire protection as well as safety plans and layouts for power plants. The scope in fire protection is to prepare equipment and layouts for fire protection systems. The team makes the design for the placement of e.g. fire and gas extinguishing systems, hydraulic calculations and detailed piping designs.
In plant safety, the work usually starts with hazardous area classification and escape route analysis. This is used as a base for other disciplines to identify risk areas, to decide where to place electrical equipment, to arrange separation from those areas, to increase ventilation of that area and to make it visible for people so that no one accesses it by mistake. 
The work of the safety team is very important cutting across all disciplines. It is crucial to identify hazards because if they are not identified, they cannot be managed. If accidents happen, it is partly because all the hazards were not identified, and risks controlled in the design phase.
The safety team assesses plant behaviour in case of emergency and prepares a technical specification for plant emergency shutdown to prevent and mitigate plant accidents thus bringing the plant to a safe state in a likely event of an emergency. The team also utilises hazard identification and risk analysis techniques to identify applicable hazards associated with plant or equipment and implement safety measures through inherent safety design concept, layers of protection concept and residual risk concept.
Every project has different requirements and specifications both from the client and from the authorities. The starting point is always to go through the layouts and specifications as well as country specific regulations and requirements for that plant. The right regulations need to be identified so that they can be applied to that specific plant.
I think the key is to collaborate across disciplines, take initiative and have an open mind to learn new things. Our team is committed to overcome challenges, is resilient, and tenacious to get results. Because we are a small team, we are integrated as a family working for a common goal.
Effiong Mkpat, Expert, HSE & Process Safety
Would you like to know how we can help you in your industrial project? Kindly contact Ulf Geister, Manager, HSE & Process Safety for more information.
