ABSTRACT
Background; Prevention of accidents-a crucial requirement in oil industries-involves hazard recognition, risk assessment, and corrective actions. The purpose of this study was to compare the ETBA and HAZOP techniques for risk assessment in a gasoline refinery unit
Methods; In this case study, data were collected using process flow diagram, walking-talking through method, piping and instrumentation diagram, and direct observations. Worksheets for both techniques were filled on the basis of the risk assessment matrix MIL-STD-882E
Results; The HAZOP method identified 44 deviations attributable to 118 causes. In addition, 11.37% of the identified hazards were associated with unacceptable risk, and 36.36%, with unfavorable risk. The ETBA method detected 10 groups of energy [24 subgroups]; 33 hazards were detected, 10.62% of which were associated with unacceptable risk
Conclusion; HAZOP proved to be the more powerful technique for the prediction and identification of hazards. However, ETBA detected certain hazards that were not identifiable using HAZOP. Therefore, a combination of these two methods is desirable for the assessment of hazard risk in process industries