How Risk Based Decision Making improves Energy Efficiency in Oil and Gas Industry - Implementing Environmental and Resource Management - page 180

3. Consensus building on the optimal targets for each key performance indicator
(KPI) by all the stakeholders is another significant barrier. KPIs may include
risk, reliability, cost, energy efficiency etc.
4. Lack of internationally consistent assessment methodologies and software is
also another area of concern.
5. Though many EU countries, such as the UK and Norway have legislations on
assessment techniques, no formal endorsements exist in the USA, Russia or in
developing countries like China and India, which account for most of the im-
port and export of crude oil and gas.
15.11 Impetus to Implementation
If the stakeholders realise the benefits of the RBDM approach at an early stage of
the project, the barriers mentioned above may be overcome. The proposed meth-
odology has numerous advantages which may provide an impetus for its imple-
mentation. Some of them are listed below:
1. Even with the absence of any legislative framework, since it is easy to under-
stand the benefits of the strategy, the framework should be well-accepted by the
operator. The benefits penetrate down to each division in a process plant while
addressing the multi-objectives and thus should easily be approved by the con-
cerned disciplines within the operating company.
2. It provides a framework for the whole lifecycle of the plant. A real time model
can be developed with measurable KPIs to keep track of the performance peri-
odically.
3. The approach incorporates knowledge sharing among multiple departments and
increased understanding of the process, operations, maintenance and the man-
agement within the company.
4. A prioritisation of optimised actions addressing multiple objectives is certainly
a method to improve the plant's performance over its lifecycle.
15.12 Conclusions and Recommendations
In a period characterised by financial difficulties, increased energy demand and
continued dependence on oil and gas as an energy source, there is a need to under-
stand the economic benefits of improving energy efficiency alongside safety, op-
erability, reliability, availability and environmental performance in process plants.
New technical solutions to realise these goals are continually being developed and
adherence to ALARP criteria has become more important in the local and global
contexts. The paper recommends identifying energy optimisation as a goal to the
existing practice of ALARP framework. This can be carried out at different stages
of the project as proposed in this paper. The Risk Based Decision Making process
has its benefits over the entire life-cycle of a plant. The paper has also described