What are Black Swan Events, do they exist in the context of process safety, how can we prepare for them? Lachlan Dreher (Director and Principal Risk Consultant) addressed these questions in his presentation at ProSafe 2016.

Black Swan Events were originally discussed in a financial setting and have been defined as an event that is unexpected or not probable, based on the information available from past events.

In managing process safety risks, hazards and potential consequences are identified, with preventative and mitigating control measures allocated to these to manage the residual risk to a desired target level. This works well for the hazards and potential consequences that we know and understand. However, what about the potential hazards we don’t know about? This is where Black Swan Events, those with potentially catastrophic impacts, fit in.

Considering these Black Swan events, Lachlan outlined four key points:

1. Hazard Identification
2. Sound selection of the “risk design” scenarios
3. Management of controls
4. Crisis Management / Emergency Response.

To read more about Black Swan Events and managing the potential hazards you don’t know, download the presentation slides here.