On August 4, 2020, a pair of explosions from a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut, Lebanon caused over 200 deaths, 7,000 injuries, and US$15 billion in property damage, and leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless.
In this seminar, we will walk you through a mock investigation on what went wrong, and which Process Safety Management component could have prevented this disaster.
Adrian Pierorazio, P.Eng., CFEI, FEC, PPSE, MCIC
Senior Director, Canada East, Jensen Hughes
Adrian is the Operations Leader for the Canada East region of Jensen Hughes. Adrian has over 25 years of years of experience with process safety management (PSM) and he has been involved in its many aspects. Starting as a researcher and consequence analyst, Adrian worked on experimental and theoretical research and methodology development for BLEVEs (boiling liquid expanding vapour explosions), bursting pressure vessels, and vapour cloud explosions. Adrian has been widely published, including being one of the lead authors for the Center for Chemical process Safety (CCPS) handbook on explosion modelling, and the ASM Guidebook on Failure Analysis and Prevention. He has continued to publish in peer-reviewed journals, conference papers and books as well as journal articles.
As an incident investigator, Adrian has led major industrial incidents investigations on four continents for a variety of clients – from owners, operators and third parties; to insurers and government. In this role, he has worked on some of the most high-profile industrial incidents in recent decades, including landmark incidents such as Sunrise Propane and Lac Megantic in Canada; and with BP Texas City and Deepwater Horizon.
Adrian is committed to giving back to the profession and to this end, dedicates a proportion of his time to volunteering with organizations like Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO), the PSM Division of the CSChE, CSA, UL, and IEC/ISO, often in positions of leadership. In addition, he devotes time to developing the next generation of engineers and PSM leaders through active mentorship of young professionals, and by teaching graduate courses in PSM, risk assessment, and failures under blast loading at the University of Toronto in Chemical and Civil Engineering.
Parnian Jadidian, P.Eng
Process Safety Specialist, Enbridge Gas Inc.
Parnian is a Process Safety Specialist at Enbridge Gas Inc. and leads the Process Safety Management (PSM) program at the company. In her role, she directs and executes PSM initiatives across the business unit by translating and applying PSM principles to the gas distribution, transmission and storage operations. Parnian has over 10 years of experience in PSM and risk management, with experiences centered around application of qualitative and quantitative methodologies to evaluate exposures caused by fires, explosions, natural hazards and operational factors. In addition to her full-time commitments, Parnian teaches PSM at the University of Toronto, is an executive member of the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering’s (CSChE) PSM Division (PSMD) and serves on the CSA Z767 Technical Standard Committee.