167 / 648
Safety and environmental standards for fuel storage sites
Final report
165
Principles for safe management of fuel transfer
179 The Initial Report
110
of the Buncefield MIIB identified an issue with regard to safety arrangements,
including communications, for fuel transfer. No authoritative guidance was found that adequately
describes these principles. To address this, the set of principles for safe management of fuel transfer
were developed. These include the adoption of principles for consignment transfer agreements.
Guidance
180 These guiding principles should be developed into specific procedures and protocols by all
organisations involved in the transfer of fuel to ensure that at all times the operation is carried out
in a safe and responsible manner without loss of containment.
181 All parties involved in the transfer of fuel must ensure that:
responsibility for the management of the safe transfer of fuel is clearly delineated;
■
■
there are suitable systems and controls in place to adequately manage the safe transfer of fuel
■
■
commensurate with the frequency and complexity of the operation;
there is clear accountability and understanding of all tasks necessary for the transfer
■
■
operation;
there are sufficient, adequately rested, competent persons to safely execute all stages of the
■
■
operation;
shift handover procedures comply with latest available industry guidance.
■
■
receiving site operators:
■
■
positively confirm that they can safely receive the fuel before transfer commences;
––
positively confirm that they are able to initiate emergency shutdown of the fuel transfer;
––
there is clear understanding of what events will initiate an emergency shutdown of the fuel
■
■
transfer operation;
as a minimum the following information is communicated between all relevant parties prior to
■
■
commencing fuel transfer:
grade/type;
––
consignment size (including common understanding of units used);
––
flow rate profiles (significant (all parties to agree what constitutes a ‘significant’ change
––
for their operation) unplanned changes in flow rate during the transfer should be
communicated);
start time;
––
estimated completion time;
––
any critical operations/periods when transfer could adversely affect other operations (eg
––
slow load requirements, roof on legs);
there is an appropriate degree of integrity in the method of communication (eg telephone,
■
■
radio, facsimile, e-mail, common server) with positive confirmation of all critical exchanges;
there is an agreed process to communicate changes to the plan in a timely manner;
■
■
there is clearly understood nomenclature;
■
■
key performance indicators are in place to monitor and review performance.
■
■
Checklist of job factors for safe fuel transfer
182 The following checklist comprises a set of job factors identified in a review of the various
safety-critical stages in fuel transfer operations: it is intended for use as an aide-memoire in
reviews of systems and procedures.
Planning tools
Provision of clear information on short-term and long-term outages of plant or
■
■
instrumentation.
Provision of job aids for calculating availability, eg when filling multiple tanks.
■
■
Provision of equipment to allow effective communication between all parties.
■
■
Provision of user-friendly plans to communicate and agree plans between planners/senders
■
■
and receivers.
Good planning tools to predict end of transfer.
■
■