Safety Science 105 (2018) 77–85

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Safety Science
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Review

T
Risk analysis of French chemical industry
a,b a,⁎ a,c b
Amine Dakkoune , Lamiae Vernières-Hassimi , Sébastien Leveneur , Dimitri Lefebvre ,
Lionel Estela
a
Normandie Univ, INSA Rouen, UNIROUEN, LSPC, EA4704, 76000 Rouen, France
b
Université Le Havre – GREAH, 25 rue P. Lebon, 76063 Le Havre, France
c
Laboratory of Industrial Chemistry and Reaction Engineering, Johan Gadolin Process Chemistry Centre, Åbo Akademi University, Biskopsgatan 8, FI-20500 Åbo/Turku,
Finland

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Accidental events in chemical industry can cause damages to human health, environment and economy. To
Accidental events prevent such events in industries, it is essential to identify and analyze the past events. To the best of our
Chemical industry knowledge, such an analysis has not been done for the French chemical industry sector, which is the second
ARIA database producer in Europe. To fill this gap, 169 events were selected and collected in the French database ARIA
Process safety
(Analysis, Research and Information on Accidents). These events occurred between 1974 and 2014. The causes
Experience feedback
Risk analysis
and consequences of the events were analyzed. The study shows that the causes were mainly related to operator
errors. Then, a semi-quantitative analysis of risk was also carried out, based on the frequencies and consequences
of the events. This analysis confirms that chemical industry activities present a significant risk. Based on this
analysis, national agencies can make some recommendations or rules in order to reduce the number of events in
chemical industry.

1. Introduction
The chemical industry’s activities are often controversial due to the
high risks that they represent (Malich et al., 1998). Besides, the location
of these industries, handling dangerous substances, are usually within
densely populated areas (Reniers et al., 2006). Over the past decades,
serious industrial accidents or incidents affecting lives, facilities and
environment (Gomez et al., 2008) have heightened society's awareness
of the negative effects of technology (Nivolianitou et al., 2004). These
accidental events can be defined by five levels: Near miss, Mishap, In-
cident, Accident and Catastrophic accident according to Rathnayaka
et al. (2011). Despite the improvement of safety, accidents still occur –
but hopefully fewer and with less impact on human health and en-
vironment (EU, 2012).
Companies still wonder how these events can be reduced? Why did
people make the same mistakes? Why the lessons have not been learnt
from past accidental events?
Since the series of chemical disasters in recent decades, Flixborough
(1974), Seveso (1976), Bhopal (1984), Basel (1986), Mexico (1988),
Enschede (2000), AZF Toulouse (2001) (Sengupta et al., 2016), there
was an impulse for the efforts in the area of process safety. Indeed,
several articles, reports, books (Crowl and Louvar, 2001; Mannan,
2013; Sanders, 2015) or procedures on chemical accidents have been
written to improve process safety. For example, the popular bow-tie
approach used to identify the accident scenarios (de Dianous and
Fiévez, 2006; Delvosalle et al., 2005, 2006; Gowland, 2006), or the
Bayesian theory approach used in the work of Meel et al. (2007) and
which is a complement of the previous bow-tie approach (Badreddine
and Amor, 2010; Khakzad et al., 2013). Al-shanini et al. (2014) also
proposed a systematic accident modeling based on precursor data.
Edwards and Lawrence (1993) proposed the first method to quantify
inherent safety, this proactive approach uses basic design measures to
eliminate, prevent and reduce hazard. Khan and Amyotte (2004) used
the same approach and proposed a new tool called Integrated Inherent
Safety Index (I2SI) for inherent safety evaluation. In the same context,
Tugnoli et al. (2007) proposed another tool based on the evaluation of
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Different methodologies concerning
the risk analyses have been published. Khan and Abbasi (1998a) sug-
gest a new methodology for Hazard Identification and Ranking (HIRA)
that indicates the severity of the likely accident. On the other hand,
Khan and Abbasi (2001) developed a methodology of Optimal Risk
Analysis (ORA) that allows a risk analysis with a few time, effort and
cost. Another example is giving by Papazoglou et al. (1992) that pre-
sented a set of procedures and methodologies for Probabilistic Safety
Assessment (PSA) in chemical plants. However, Rossing et al. (2010)
proposed a methodology based on feed-back experiences from

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lamiae.vernieres@insa-rouen.fr (L. Vernières-Hassimi).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2018.02.003

0925-7535/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Received 21 June 2017; Received in revised form 22 January 2018; Accepted 2 February 2018
A. Dakkoune et al.
traditional HAZOP studies. Other methodologies of risk analysis have
been discussed and compared in several articles (Khan and Abbasi,
1998b; Rouvroye and van den Bliek, 2002; Tixier et al., 2002).
Some authors interested on domino hazard assessment such as the
methodology proposed by Antonioni et al. (2009) and Cozzani et al.
(2014) to include domino effects in Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA).
Recently, Alileche et al. (2016) have developed a specific model for the
assessment of domino effect scenarios based on event tree analysis. By
analyzing the events that have occurred, we can learn from them and
prevent the same accidents from happening again (Grossel, 2002).
However, the effectiveness of learning from accidents can often be
questioned. In many cases, the learning process stops at the reporting
stage (Zhao et al., 2014).
The study of accidents and lessons learnt has been carried out by
different authors (Ale et al., 2017; Balasubramanian and Louvar, 2002;
Gomez et al., 2008; Khan and Abbasi, 1999; Makino, 2016;
Nivolianitou et al., 2006; Planas-Cuchi et al., 1997; Saada et al., 2015;
Sales et al., 2007; Sonnemans and Körvers, 2006; Uth, 1999). To per-
form such studies, the authors have to rely on reports, articles or da-
tabases including accident reports. There are several databases, usually
managed by a governmental agency: Chemical Safety Board (CSB) in
the United States, Relief Information System for Chemical Accidents
Database (RISCAD) in Japan, Major Hazard Incident Data Service
(MHIDAS) in the United Kingdom, Major Accident Reporting System
(MARS) in the European Union, Zentrale Melde- und Auswertestelle für
Störfälle und Störungen in verfahrenstechnischen Anlagen (ZEMA) in
Germany, FACTS (Failure and ACcidents Technical information System)
in the Netherlands or Analyse, Recherche et Information sur les Accidents
(ARIA) in France.
Despite an extensive literature review on chemical events, we have
not found any references that have dealt with data on chemical in-
dustrial events in France. This lack of study is relatively surprising
because French chemical industry is important for its economy: sixth
among chemical producers in the world and the second largest pro-
ducer in Europe in 2014 (UIC, 2016). Furthermore, French chemical
industries are often located near to populated areas (Zampa et al.,
1996). Since the disaster of AZF in 2001, France has decided to modify
its regulation concerning risk management by including the notion of
frequency and probability in risk assessment (Lenoble and Durand,
2011; Taveau, 2010). Chemical industries account for 14% of industrial
events reported in France in 2014 (ARIA, 2016).
In this study, we have gathered and studied the chemical industry
events in France between 1974 and 2014 based on the ARIA database.
In the first step, we have analyzed the causes and consequences of
events in the different sectors of chemical industry in France. Then, a
risk analysis was carried out based on the risk matrix proposed in ISO
17776 (International Organization for Standardization (ISO), 2000).
2. Methodology
2.1. Description of ARIA database
Chemical accident databases can serve as source of information for
developing strategies for emergency responses (Gomez et al., 2008;
Zhang et al., 2008). ARIA database can be considered as robust because
it is one of the main European databases on technological accidents
available with FACTS and MIHDAS (INERIS, 2016). ARIA was also
exploited in several scientific studies (Casson Moreno and Cozzani,
2015; Cozzani et al., 2010; Hemmatian et al., 2014; Renni et al., 2010;
Tauseef et al., 2011).
ARIA is a database managed by the French ministry of ecology,
sustainable development and energy since 1992. This database in-
ventories more than 43,000 accidental events occurred in France and in
the world (INERIS, report DRA-12-124789-07543A).
The ARIA database gathers information on:
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Safety Science 105 (2018) 77–85
– Accidents and incidents involving dangerous chemicals in classified
installation or assimilated (ca. 71% of the inventoried accidents).
– Transport of hazardous materials (15%) and other areas such as
pressure equipment, mines and quarries, underground storage, as
well as dams and dykes.
This database is intended to provide consequences, circumstances
and causes of events, and lessons learnt.
The information listed in ARIA comes from government services
(inspection of classified installations, fire and rescue services, etc.) from
the press and from several professional organizations. The updating is
performed as soon as new information is provided. It is also possible to
access to accident summaries and detailed event data sheets.
2.2. Data selection
In ARIA database, events are integrated in two ways: summary and/
or detailed fact sheets. The summary form provides the key information
data. The detailed form (fact sheets) presents very precisely events in
terms of feedback on: the course of events, their circumstances, con-
sequences, measures taken in the short or medium term, proven or
suspected causes, follow-up or lessons learned. For this reason, our
study focuses on detailed fact sheets. Fig. 1 shows the procedure fol-
lowed for selecting the events.
ARIA contains data for more than 43,000 events, which 42,000
events occurred in France, and 4000 events occurred in the French
chemical sector. Among these 4000 events, 169 are sufficiently docu-
mented in terms of feedback on consequences, circumstances and
causes. For the sake of accuracy, this study was based on these 169
events.
2.3. Definitions
In this work, the events were separated into five categories ac-
cording to the definition provided by Rathnayaka et al. (2011):
– Catastrophic accident or disaster: an event that may cause multiple
fatalities and massive damage to property, production and en-
vironmental, temporary or permanent plant shutdown, and that is
mentioned in international media.
– Accident: an event that may cause one or more fatalities or per-
manent major disabilities, relevant financial loss, and that is men-
tioned in national media.
– Incident: an event that could cause major health effect or injury,
localized damage to property and environment, considerable loss of
production and affect company image.
– Mishap: an event that could cause minor health effects and/or minor
damages to property and the environment, production loss or work
ARIA database
43,000 events in the world
42,000 events in France
4,000 events
in chemical industry
169
detailed
reports
Fig. 1. Structure of events selection in ARIA database.
A. Dakkoune et al. Safety Science 105 (2018) 77–85

Other
Explosion

7%
Accident Leakage
Catastrophic 23%
20.12% accident
Mishap
0.6% 18%
27.81%

9%
Fire
Incident
51.47% 18%

Release
25%
Fig. 2. Repartition of the 169 events. Runaway

hour loss.
– Near miss: an event that potentially could have resulted in a loss, but
it did not.
In the 169 events collected, there were no events classified as near
miss, which is probably due to the nature of the detailed form events
(fact sheets) which only refers to accidents with consequences. Fig. 2
shows the repartition of the events included in this study.
Fig. 4. Repartition of scenarios in the French chemical industry (1974–2014).
and building plans, and be able to reinforce building or expropriate
the most exposed residents.
– Some events have not been detailed in ARIA database up to now.
3. Results and discussion

2.4. Trends of events
Fig. 3 shows the distribution of the number of events for each five
years from 1974 to 2014. The number of events in the chemical sector
strongly increased from 1974 to 2003. After 2003, the number of events
decreased slightly during the period 2004–2009 and became lower in
the last period (2010–2014).
This reduction in the number of events after 2003 can be due to:
– the risks law known as “Bachelot law”: in order to reduce the risks of
Seveso high threshold sites, after the explosion of the AZF plant on
September 2001, the technological risk prevention plans were cre-
ated in France by this law of July 2003 on industrial risks. These
prevention plans should reduce risks at the source, redefine urban
Based on the analysis of the 169 events collected from the ARIA
database from 1974 to 2014, it was found that these events occurred in
the following chemical sectors: petroleum refining, oil storage facilities,
basic chemical manufacture, plastic/rubber, pyrotechnics/explosives,
fine chemicals manufacture and other chemical industries.
We have found that it was possible to distinguish five main critical
scenarios during the events. These critical scenarios were explosion,
fire, leakage, release and runaway. The latter critical scenario occurs
when the heat released by chemical reactions cannot be absorbed by a
cooling system. Obviously, one critical scenario can lead to another
one. For example, a runaway can lead to an explosion. Our concern was
to present the main critical scenario for the 169 events. Fig. 4 shows
that explosion, leakage, release and runaway are the main critical
scenario for the 169 events in the French chemical industries.
It should be noted that the two terms release and leakage have been

Fig. 3. Number of events included in ARIA database for chemical industry in France from 1974 to 2014.

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A. Dakkoune et al. Safety Science 105 (2018) 77–85

Petroleum operations being performed close to the equipment.

Other chemical
industries
7%
Fine chamicals
manufacture
18%
Pyrotechnics / 9%
explosives
12%
Plastic / rubber
Fig. 5. Sectoral distribution of industrial chemical events reported in ARIA by type of
chemical industry during1974-2014.
separated in this study. In fact, the term release defines an emergency
release by a mean provided for this purpose such as a chimney, pipe,
etc., without breaking. The term leakage means a release due to a
breach or rupture.
We have noticed that 51% of the 169 events occurred in the fol-
lowing sectors: fine chemicals and basic chemicals manufacture
(Fig. 5). This observation can be explained by the fact that several
exothermic chemical reactions are used in these industries. Surpris-
ingly, events in pyrotechnics/explosives sectors are lower than 10%
(Fig. 5). This can be explained by the use of stricter rules regarding
safety issues due to the use of very hazardous chemicals.
3.1. Consequences of events
3.1.1. Consequences on people
More than 46% of chemical industrial events in the ARIA database
(79 events out of 169) cause damage to operators or to population: 725
injuries and 78 deaths are recorded for the period 1974–2014. Fig. 6
summarizes the number of deaths and injuries for each type of chemical
industry during the considered period. The reason for these large
numbers is mainly that usually these events take place during manual
refining
Number of injuries is higher than the number of deaths in all che-
5%
mical industries. The number of injuries in basic chemical manufacture
is the highest, reaching 360 people (with an average of 6.5 injuries per
Oil storage
facilities event) followed by pyrotechnics/explosives industry (112 injuries
16 %
equivalent to an average of 7.5 injuries per event) and fine chemicals
manufacture (80 injuries equivalent to an average of 2.6 injuries per
event). Similarly, the number of deaths is important in basic chemical
manufacture (37 deaths equivalent to an average of 0.7 death per
event) followed by pyrotechnics/explosives industry (17 deaths
equivalent to an average of 1.1 death per event). The number of deaths
in the other chemical sectors does not exceed six persons for the period
1974–2014.
33%
Basic chemical
manufacture 3.1.2. Economic losses
Economic consequence is also an important indicator to quantify the
event severity, but it was not possible to update the cost for all events
because of the lack of information. As an indication of the event cost,
we may mention the events caused by the explosion of a stock of am-
monium nitrate in a fertilizer plant in Toulouse (France) in 2001 (ARIA
N°21329). By taking into account the material damages, the production
losses following the explosion and the cost to clean up the site, the
event cost was valued above 2 billion euros. For another event invol-
ving the explosion of a sulphuric acid tank in a chemical plant in
Gonfreville-l'Orcher (France) in 2009 (ARIA N°36628), the cost of
material damage and operating losses was estimated to 6 million euros.
The third example is a Fuel oil spill in an estuary during a transfer
operation in Donges (France) in 2008 (ARIA N°34351), the cost to clean
up and decontaminate the impacted environments, was more than
20 million euros. In each event, that we have analyzed, the financial
losses ranged from 0.1 million to 2 billion euros. The consequences of
chemical events may be more costly if the necessary preventive mea-
sures are not implemented. For example, Khakzad et al. (2018) have
demonstrated that for a chemical storage plant comprising ten gasoline
tanks, with a service life of 10 years, the expected loss when no thank is
fireproofed was six times more expensive than when all the tanks were
fireproofed.
3.2. Causes of events
To prevent such events, it is important to determine their causes. As
we have mentioned several scenarios can be linked to an event, several

Deaths
Petroleum refining 6
11 Injuries

Plastic / Rubber 2
32

Oil storage facilities 5

35
Manufacturing Industries

Other chemical industries 6

43

Fine chemicals manufacture 3

80

Pyrotechnics / Explosives 17
112

Basic chemical manufacture 37

360

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Number of deaths / injuries

Fig. 6. Number of injuries and deaths by type of chemical industry for the period 1974–2014 in France.

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A. Dakkoune et al. Safety Science 105 (2018) 77–85

Other chemical
7 9 1
industries

Fine chemicals
25 26 2
manufacture

Manufacturing Industries Pyrotechnics /

3 11
explosives

Plastic / rubber 13 18

Basic chemical
48 42 8
manufacture

Oil storage facilities 16 15 3

Petroleum refining 9 5 1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Percentage of causes
Technical and physical causes Human and organizational causes Natural causes 1 Number of accidents

Fig. 7. Causes for the 169 events studied in the period 1974–2014.

causes can also lead to an event. In the safety community, it is common Table 1
to distinguish three categories of cause: Possible causes for the three chemical industries with the highest number of events.

Possible causes of events % of cause in each chemical industry

– Technical causes: equipment failure, wrong design, etc;
– Human and organizational causes: human error, insufficient Basic chemical Fine chemicals Oil storage
training, lack of knowledge concerning the process, etc; manufacture manufacture facilities
– Natural causes: lightning, flood, earthquake, etc.
Technical and physical causes
Corrosion 3.14 2.88 8.64
Fig. 7 presents the repartition of the 169 events within these three Reactor charging 2.09 1.92 0.00
categories. For each industry, the causes are detailed in percentage and Equipment sizing 2.63 5.77 0.00
in number. Uncontrolled or 6.81 7.69 2.47
unexpected
From Fig. 7, one should notice that the events with natural causes
reactions
are mostly rare. The number of events for the sectors petroleum re- Sensor failure 6.28 6.73 7.41
fining, pyrotechnics/explosive and other is very low, thus, it is difficult Stirring 2.63 4.82 0.00
to find a clear trend (less than 20 during the period 1974–2014). For the Technical failure: 9.42 6.73 12.35
other sectors, one could notice that the human and organization, and mechanical/
electrical
technical and physical are the main causes of event. Impurity 5.76 6.73 0.00
In order to know the nature of these causes, Table 1 represents the Leakage 1.05 0.00 7.41
possible causes identified for the three chemical industrial sectors with Power cut 1.57 0.96 0.00
the highest number of events (Fig. 5), i.e., basic chemical manufacture, Human and organizational causes
fine chemicals manufacture and oil storage facilities. In these three Operator error 19.37 17.31 19.75
chemical industries, 114 events were identified and analyzed. Insufficient training 6.28 9.62 0.00
The data compiled in Table 1 results from an in-depth analysis of the Communication 2.09 0.00 0.00
Poor risk analysis 10.99 10.58 16.05
events listed in Appendix A (Tables S1–S3). Events have been classified Maintenance operations 4.19 4.81 11.11
based on their initial causes. Inadequate cleaning 1.57 2.88 0.00
In basic chemical manufacture, most events due to technical and Procedures, devices or 8.38 7.69 11.11
physical causes come from the failure of equipment (9.42%) followed location improper
Lack of equipment 3.66 0.00 0.00
by unexpected or uncontrolled reactions (6.81%), problems related to
the detection of anomalies (6.28%) and the presence of impurities in Natural causes
Storm 0.52 0.00 0.00
the reaction volume (5.76%) (Table 1). For example, in 2004, an
Rain 0.52 0.96 3.7
electrical failure on a SEVESO classified site, producing hydrazine, led Temperature 1.05 0.00 0.00
to the release of 280 kg of ammonia. A large portion of this release was Flood 0.00 1.92 0.00
brought to the ground. This Mishap occurred at Lannemezan and was
classified as ARIA N°28416. The origin of this Mishap was an electrical
fault on one cooling pumps of the hydrazine process leading to a short and physical causes in basic chemical manufacture is to improve pre-
circuit on one switchboard and starting a fire. Due to the loss of elec- ventive maintenance and the knowledge of the chemical reactions in-
trical power, the valves stopped the input of feedstock in the reactor. volved.
Unfortunately, the exothermic reaction continued in the reactor where In fine chemicals manufacture, events due to technical and physical
the reaction heat could not be absorbed, due to the inoperative cooling causes are mainly uncontrolled reactions (7.69%), presence of im-
system. The pressure in the reactor increased leading to the activation purities (6.73%), technical failure (6.73%), malfunction of detectors
of the burst disc. A better control of the industrial risk due to technical (6.73%) or plant design (5.77%). As an example of uncontrolled

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A. Dakkoune et al.
reaction, one can cite the Saint Vulbas Mishap in 1994 (ARIA N°5900),
in a fine chemistry unit producing active principles for pharmaceutical
industry. For the production of 3,4-methylenedioxyphenol, two steps
were needed in batch reactors. In the first reactor, the reaction tem-
perature abnormally increased during the feeding of an aldehyde-
phenol solution into the mixture of hydrogen peroxide, maleic anhy-
dride, methylene chloride and dimethylformamide. By observing this
temperature increase, the technician stopped the feeding and wanted to
turn off the temperature alarm but unknowingly switched off the agi-
tator system. The stop of the agitator led to the phase separation of the
reaction mixture, and the reading temperature corresponded to the
lower phase of the reaction mixture, which was not reliable. The tem-
perature increased at the interface of the reaction mixture leading to a
rapid pressure increase. The consequences were no casualty, no en-
vironmental impact but the damage of the rupture disc and glass
column. Industrial risk due to technical and physical causes in fine
chemicals manufacture can be decreased by improving the preventive
maintenance and the knowledge of the chemical reactions.
In oil storage facilities industry, events due to technical and physical
causes are mainly mechanical failures (12.35%), problems related to
the corrosion of materials (8.64%), detectors (7.41%) and leakage
problems (7.41%). The issue of corrosion for such chemical sector can
be illustrated by the Petit-Couronne accident in 1990 (ARIA N°2257), a
leak was identified at the level of an elbow on a piping of fuel from the
refinery. This leak caused pollution of the groundwater whose gaseous
phases spread through the gutters of the city. The surface area of the
polluted water table was estimated at 100 ha, with the loss of over
15,000 m3 of hydrocarbons and more than 13,000 m3 pumped into the
groundwater. Moreover, some of these hydrocarbon vapors were ac-
cumulated in a house basement, the homeowner by turning on the hot
water triggered the ignition of these vapors. The house was destroyed
but the homeowner was slightly injured. Expert evaluations enabled
identifying the polluted zone and assigning responsibility to the re-
finery located 2 km away. The refinery operator settled with all third
parties who sustained damages: the owner of the destroyed residence,
the water supply distributor, and the municipality. The total cost of
compensation paid out plus ancillary works exceeded 50 M francs in
1991 (which corresponds to about 11 M€ in 2016 (Insee, 2017) by
taking into account monetary erosion). The increase of corrosion
monitoring and preventive maintenance should be done to allow a
better control of the industrial risk due to technical and physical causes
in oil storage facilities industry.
Events due to human and organizational causes in basic chemical
manufacture are essentially due to operator errors (19.37%), then in-
adequate analyzes of risks within the industry (10.99%), and in-
adequate procedures, devices or improper location (8.38%). As an ex-
ample, one can cite the Jarrie accident in 1992 (ARIA N°3536), an
explosion and an ensuing fire destroyed a hydrogen peroxide unit
(H2O2) located near a series of hydrogen and chlorine tanks. The origin
of this accident was a default of an electrical supply card in one of the
unit control system. However, the analysis of this accident reveals that
inadequate risk analysis of the operator has exacerbated the accident.
In fine chemicals manufacture, human errors contribute to 17.31%
of events followed by insufficient risk analyzes (10.58%), insufficient
training (9.62%) and inadequate procedures, devices or location
(7.69%). As an example, one can cite the Gennevilliers incident in 1993
(ARIA N°4708), an exothermic runaway reaction triggered an explosion
and subsequent fire in a workshop at a pharmaceutical plant. The
agents that worked on the shift were qualified but the operator, the
newest arrival to the crew, was conducting the imide transfer operation
for the first time. The conditions to safely ensure and control the op-
eration of the installations were not fulfilled at the time of the incident.
For oil storage facilities industry, human errors are the most fre-
quent causes (19.75%) followed by inadequate risk analyzes (16.05%)
as well as poor maintenance (11.11%) and inadequate procedures,
devices or location (11.11%). For the Frontignan incident in 2014
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Safety Science 105 (2018) 77–85
(ARIA N°45737), in an oil depot, the floating roof of a tank of gasoline
tank, for which the drainage capacity was not re-evaluated after the
introduction of automatic closing systems in 2001, sank gradually
during precipitation. Many local residents complained of strong hy-
drocarbon odors. During the investigation, the Board of inquiry con-
firmed that the accident was caused by the lack of preventive main-
tenance for roof cleaning, the unclogging of the drain line and the
partial control of the inside of the drain.
In these three chemical industries, causes due to natural phenomena
such as floods and storms or environmental conditions such as tem-
perature drops, freeze or rain, represent less than 4% of the causes. As
an example, one can cite the Wingles mishap in 2010 (ARIA N°38617).
Due to a thunderstorm, a widespread electrical power outage occurred,
thus the cooling and stirring system could not be maintained. This si-
tuation triggered a thermal runaway on one of the lines, which caused a
rupture disc to burst, releasing 10 tons of polystyrene and another 3
tons of styrene into the atmosphere.
Based on the five types of events and the different initial causes
identified, the risk distribution for each category of events is shown in
Fig. 9.
It is clear that operator error is the main initial cause of events in the
chemical industrial sector (about 40% of events). Percentages of other
identified initial causes are low (less than 10%). The other initial causes
include technical and physical causes, and human and organizational
causes classified respectively as following technical failure, un-
controlled or unexpected reactions, insufficient risk analysis and cor-
rosion, etc. In natural causes, most of their risks do not exceed 4%,
despite natural phenomena are often devastating and generally difficult
to predict.
The chemical industry needs to be more vigilant with respect to
these risks mainly related to the human factors. Because the behavior of
humans is complex and in interaction to other external factors such as
material, management, another human, etc. In order to reduce, the
events linked to this human factor, the research of methods to improve
the behavior of employees is essential.
Indeed, it would be difficult to design technological systems to
eliminate all human errors during operation. On the other hand, a
survey can be proposed to improve and identify problems in order to
improve operator intervention. Based on these results, a risk analysis by
experience feedback was made for the French chemical industry.
3.3. Risk analysis
Risk analysis based on past events analysis was made on the events
collected from the French chemical industry between 1974 and 2014.
Then, the risks were prioritized according to their importance. A semi-
quantitative methodology proposed by Di Padova et al. (2011) was used
based on a risk matrix. Public authorities and companies used the risk
matrix for decision-making (Casson Moreno et al., 2016). In this ana-
lysis, the risk matrix (Fig. 8) was adapted to our study from the risk
matrix proposed in ISO 17776 (International Organization for
Standardization (ISO), 2000).
In this semi-quantitative approach, the risk matrix is based on two
indices, the frequency of occurrence of the risk and the severity of the
consequences for each event.
The severity of the reported events was divided into five different
categories (Rathnayaka et al., 2011): Near miss, Mishap, Incident, Ac-
cident and Catastrophic accident according to Table 2.
In European regulations, there is not a standard method to evaluate
frequencies. Event frequencies for each severity category were esti-
mated based on the work of Casson Moreno and Cozzani (2015), Casson
Moreno et al. (2016) and Delvosalle et al. (2004). These frequencies
were obtained by dividing the number of each event collected by the
duration of study (40 years, from 1974 to 2014) and by the overall
estimated number of chemical industries in France (3335 industries
according to UIC, 2016). Eq. (1) shows the calculation of frequency:
A. Dakkoune et al. Safety Science 105 (2018) 77–85

Frequency
Severity F0 F1 F2 F3 F4

C1 None
3.5E-04
C2 (47 events)

6.5E-04
C3 (87 events)

2.5E-04
C4 (34 events)

7.5E-06
C5 (1 event)

Acceptable situation. Unacceptable situation. Risk reducing measures needed.

Fig. 8. Risk ranking matrix.

Frequency =
( Number of each event
Total duration of study ) The risk matrix (Fig. 8) combines these two indices (frequency and
severity) and enables to determine the level of risk. Three colors are
Estimated number of chemical industries (1) defined in the risk matrix and are intended to facilitate the reading of
Calculated frequency was showed in Table 3. Frequency was di- different risk levels in order to determine acceptable, transitional zone
vided into five classes from very low frequencies up to very high fre- and unacceptable situations. In Fig. 8, the green color is generally as-
quencies (Delvosalle et al., 2004). sociated with a normal situation, while the red color is used for

__ TECHNICAL AND PHYSICAL CAUSES __

Corrosion
Mishap
Incident
Reactor charging
Accident
Equipment sizing
Catastrophic accident
Uncontrolled or unexpected reactions

Sensor failure

Stirring

Technical failure: mechanical / electrical

Impurity

Leakage
Events causes

Power cut
__ HUMAN AND ORGANIZATIONAL CAUSES __
Operator error

Insufficient training

Poor risk analysis

Maintenance operations

Inadequate cleaning

Procedures, devices or location improper

__ NATURAL CAUSES __
lightning

Storm

Rain

Temperature

Flood
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

Percentage of causes in each event (%)

Fig. 9. Distribution of initial causes for each event.

83
A. Dakkoune et al. Safety Science 105 (2018) 77–85

Table 2
Class of consequences for each event.

Events Consequences Severity Class

Human Environment Production Property Reputation

Near miss No injury No impact No loss No effet No impact C1

Mishap Minor health effects Minor impacts Production loss/work hours Minor impacts Minor impacts C2
loss
Incident A major health effect or Localized damage Considerable loss/work days Localized damage Considerable impact C3
injury loss
Accident One or more fatalities or Considerable effects Heavy financial loss. Considerable Report in national C4
permanent major damage media
disabilities
Catastrophic accident Multiple fatalities Massive environmental Extensive damage/may cause Extensive damage Report in international C5
or disaster effects a shutdown of the plant media

Table 3 has a major problem with runaway reactions about 25% of its acci-
Frequency levels in the period of 40 years: 1974–2014. dental events. This study also indicates that operator errors were the
main causes of chemical events. The estimated risk of chemical industry
Frequency of occurrence per year Frequency Class
through a semi-quantitative analysis of risk based on risk matrix con-
Qualitative definition Quantitative definition Ranking in risk firms that chemical industry activities present a significant risk, which
matrix requires risk reduction measures. The study of past events is an effective
method to detect weaknesses in the chemical industries in France. For
Very low frequency (unlikely to F ≤ 10−4 F0
occur)
national agencies, this approach can be a starting point for developing
Low frequency (once by 10−4 < F ≤ 10−3 F1 prevention plans, in order to reduce the number of events in chemical
1000 years) industry.
Frequent (once by 100 years) 10−3 < F ≤ 10−2 F2
High frequency (once during 10−2 < F ≤ 10−1 F3
Acknowledgements
10 years)
Very high frequency (has already F > 10−1 F4
happened several times in the This project AMED has been funded with the support from the
site) European Union with the European Regional Development Fund
(ERDF) and from the Regional Council of Normandie.

unacceptable or degraded situations, which requires immediate inter-
vention. Between these two situations, the yellow color is useful to
require the vigilance of the decision maker and the establishment of
safety barriers. Events, located in yellow and red zones, have to be
treated first.
It should be reminded that the risk matrix is a figure of the current
risk situation and a guidance to select events to be treated in priority.
Thus, it allows a preliminary assessment of the current risk associated
to chemical industry.
The results of the risk analysis for the different cases (Fig. 8) showed
that the risks associated to chemical industry in France are in the
transitional zone (yellow regions). This transitional area requires more
attention from industry decision-makers, requires a more detailed
analysis and the establishment of safety barriers. The frequencies of
events are slightly high. They are characterized by the presence of the
event belonging to the following classes: incident, mishap, accident and
disaster. Incidents are twice as frequent as mishap and three times more
frequent than accidents. The only Catastrophic accident shown on the
risk matrix represents the AZF disaster of Toulouse in 2001.
To conclude, activities related to the French chemical industry
present a significant risk profile. Despite the relative effectiveness of
existing controls, their level should be lowered to the tolerable (green)
region.
4. Conclusion
This work presents a risk analysis of past accidental events included
in ARIA database, and occurred in French chemical industry for the last
40 years (1974–2014). In this period, many types of events take place
where incident events were the most frequent. In addition, the trend of
events increased until the year 2003, but, after there is a decrease in the
number of reported events. Half of these collected events occurred in
basic and fine chemical manufactures. The French chemical industry
Appendix A. Supplementary material
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the
online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2018.02.003.
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