OPERA May Presentation - Boats, Bridges and Backups - BOOKINGS NOW OPEN

IN PERSON SPACES TO ATTEND (please note there is limited capacity for this particular event for in person attendance) AND ALSO AVAILABLE TO ATTEND VIRTUALLY ONLINE - Invite link will be sent to all registered attendees nearer to the time of the presentation itself after bookings have closed. 

Speaker:

Roger Stokes, BakerRisk Europe Ltd

Presenter Bio: 

Roger Stokes graduated from UMIST (Manchester, UK) as a Chemical Engineer and spent 10 years at ICI in various technical roles, leading to a position in plant management.  He then spent 23 years in the insurance industry investigating incidents at chemical and petrochemical plants, joining Baker Risk in 2015. He works out of the BakerRisk Europe Ltd. (UK) office as part of the Process Safety Group, and focusses on incident investigations, insurance risk engineering, Process Safety Management and Process Hazard Analysis.  He is also part of the BakerRisk Low Carbon Energy Group, focussing on the hazards, risks and mitigations of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS).

He has delivered presentations and training on incident investigation, BESS and on process safety, at process safety conferences and for undergraduate students.

Presentation Synopsis:

Electrical power, steam, compressed air, nitrogen, hydraulic systems, other energy sources and key utilities such as cooling water are essential for the safe and reliable operation of many facilities.  The provision of reliable back-up systems is necessary in the event that one of these supplies is lost.  However, events have occurred where the loss of multiple systems, potentially originating from the failure of a single service or common cause failures, have resulted in consequences that were not considered by either the original or subsequent risk assessments.

Back-up systems are not always available, and operations/maintenance teams are often reluctant to fully test them in case they result in loss of supply or consequences that they were intending to prevent in the first place.

Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis (HIRA) should identify the requirement for back-up systems but might not consider events when these systems fail.  Complacency regarding the reliability of back-up systems could lead to the “unsinkable Titanic approach”, whereby site management and operational staff mistakenly believe the backups are sufficiently robust.

This talk provides some examples where back-up systems have failed and offers advice on design, operation, and maintenance to reduce the risk of failure.  It discusses procedures, human factors, and emergency exercises that should be considered in the event there is a total failure of back-up systems.

Date: Tuesday 13th May 2025

Time: 

IN PERSON - 12.30PM in person arrival - pre-meeting networking. If booking in person please ensure you let us know if you cannot make the event for catering reasons. 

ONLINE - Presentation to commence at 1:00PM.

Physical venue (booked attendees only please): Convex Group - 'The Scalpel' - 52 Lime St - London - EC3M 7AF

PRE REGISTRATION AND PHOTO ID WILL BE REQUIRED FOR ADMISSION.

TO BE HELD ONLINE OR LIMITED IN PERSON SPACES TO ATTEND ARE AVAILABLE - please ensure you select the correct option when booking.

Booking - 

Members (CAN BOOK ONLINE OR IN PERSON) - should book via Webcollect as usual via this link - an invite link with further details will then be sent at a later date if attending online - or you will be registered as an in person attendee if booked to attend the venue on the day. Please ensure you select either ONLINE or IN PERSON booking dependent on which you require.

Non Members (CAN BOOK ONLINE OR IN PERSON UP TO A MAX OF 2 SEMINARS PER YEAR BEFORE MEMBERSHIP WILL BE REQUIRED) - Any non-members wishing to attend should email ianw_g@oilpera.com providing their name, job title, organisation and the seminar they wish to attend so that details can be sent through accordingly.

IMPORTANT - Please note that any non-members who wish to book in this way will also have to provide the name of a current OPERA member - who will then be notified to guarantee their booking - the booking will not be accepted if this information is not provided as this is for security purposes.

Non-member guests will be asked to purchase an OPERA subscription after more than 2 events have been attended as a guest.

Booking deadline: Friday 9th May at 1PM.