Tarragona ethylene oxide accident, 2 years on. How can we learn from past events to make the future safer?

An explosion, followed by a fire, occurred at an IQOXE chemical plant in Tarragona on Tuesday, January 14, 2020, causing 3 deaths and significant damage. As safety engineers, it is essential to know the causes to avoid similar events in other plants worldwide. As academics, we are responsible for providing students with the skills to conduct such analysis and to learn from events (accidents but also incidents and near misses) in order to make the future safer.

The webinar will first offer an analysis of the causes of the Tarragona accident. This presentation will reveal the analysis method used. In a second part, participants will be asked to analyse the structural obstacles that limit sharing of safety-relevant information in the process industries, and highlight the essential elements that should be included in a training course on accident analysis and feedback.

Content

• Keynote presentation: “Analysis of the Tarragona accident” including the obstacles to this kind of investigation, the causes of this accident, and first indications for a method of investigation – Simon Egan – Solvay
• Exchanges with the panelists and the participants: How can the sharing of safety-relevant information on process accidents be improved? What (university) training is needed to learn from dreaded events to prevent accidents?

Panelists for the discussion

• Simon Egan – Solvay, France
• Eric Marsden – FonCSI & Director of risk-engineering.org
• Olivier Salvi – President of Ineris Développement
• Gilles Motet – INSA Toulouse & Director of SEAM Online

The webinar will be organized using Zoom. Participation is free.

The webinar is organized by INSA Toulouse and the Safety Engineering and Management free online training.