Every major accident in the process industries shares one root cause: hazards that were known, and risks that were not adequately controlled.

Bhopal. Texas City. Piper Alpha. Buncefield. In each case, process hazard analysis tools existed that could have identified the failure modes before the event. HAZOP and LOPA exist precisely to prevent these outcomes — and in regulated industries, conducting them is not optional.

This course is the complete practical guide to HAZOP and LOPA for process, safety, and C&I engineers.

HAZOP — Hazard and Operability Study — is the primary technique for identifying hazards in process plant design. It is required by IEC 61511 as part of the functional safety lifecycle, by OSHA PSM for covered processes in the United States, and by COMAH for major hazard sites in the UK. If you are working on any process plant, pipeline, or offshore installation, HAZOP is not optional — and knowing how it works at a practitioner level is a professional requirement.

LOPA — Layers of Protection Analysis — is the semi-quantitative risk assessment method that bridges HAZOP and SIL determination. LOPA takes the hazard scenarios identified in a HAZOP study and quantifies whether existing safeguards provide sufficient risk reduction, or whether a Safety Instrumented System (SIS) is required and at what SIL. It is the most widely used SIL determination method in the process industry globally, and the method most often challenged by competent authorities and independent verifiers.

The HAZOP section covers the full methodology from first principles: node selection and design intent, guide word application and deviation generation, cause and consequence analysis, safeguard identification, and HAZOP record documentation. It includes CHAZOP for control systems, procedural HAZOP for batch processes, and a full worked example on a three-phase gas separator — with real engineering decisions made visible.

The LOPA section covers initiating event frequency data, consequence severity and tolerable risk targets, independent protection layer criteria and PFD credit values, the full risk calculation, and SIL determination from LOPA output. A full worked example takes a compressor station high-pressure scenario from HAZOP finding through to SIL 2 assignment, with every number shown and justified.

The course continues into SIL verification and SIS design fundamentals — covering PFD calculation methods, architecture selection, proof testing requirements, and the Safety Requirements Specification — so engineers understand what their HAZOP and LOPA work feeds into, and what the SIS designer needs from them.

Applied case studies cover HAZOP and LOPA in upstream oil and gas, gas compression and pipeline systems, chemical reactors and fired heaters, and power generation — using real equipment and real deviation scenarios throughout.

Built by a practising engineer with over fifteen years delivering safety-critical control system projects across oil, gas, and energy infrastructure — including live HAZOP and LOPA studies, SIL determinations, Safety Requirements Specifications, and Functional Safety Assessments on active major hazard installations. The methodology is explained as it is applied in practice, not as abstraction.

If you are a process engineer, safety engineer, C&I engineer, or project manager working on any plant that contains hazardous substances or energy — this course gives you the methodology, the worked examples, and the reference materials to contribute to HAZOP and LOPA studies, lead them, and review their outputs.