The ASSE-MEC conference held in Bahrain in March 2006 was an unreserved success. The conference focused on key issues within the fire protection, environment, health and safety segments of the oil, gas and petrochemical industries within this region, attracting more than 500 delegates.

Lawrence Jones and Henk Witlox of DNV Software meet the patron of the event, the Kingdom of Bahrain's Minister of the Interior, His Excellency Lieutenant General Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa.

DNV Software, as a platinum sponsor, had a prime location in the exhibition hall close to the stands of main sponsors Saudi Aramco and SABIC. This gave us the opportunity to have useful discussions with many of the delegates. We were able to meet with both existing customers, to let them know about new developments, particularly the release of Version 6.5 of Phast and Safeti and the imminent release of Safeti Financial, and generate new leads for both DNV Software and DNV as a whole.

Says Lawrie Jones, Regional Sales Manager for Risk Products in the Middle East: "The conference had the potential to be an exciting opportunity to meet clients from all over the Gulf region, and it surpassed all our expectations. The over-subscription of our QRA workshop shows why the Middle East will develop into a major market for DNV Software in the coming months and years, and interest at our stand was lively throughout the three days of the exhibition."

Five papers presented
DNV Software presented five papers at the conference. Three of these were presented by Henk Witlox and focused on the area of consequence modelling. The first described the latest improvements in droplet and rainout modelling for two-phase releases. The second provided an overview of the new rigorous multi-component capability in the discharge and dispersion models which will be implemented in Phast and Safeti version 6.6. The third described modelling of large marine LNG releases using Phast.

A further two papers were presented by DNV Software’s Global Product Manager, Dr Nic Cavanagh. The first of these concentrated on the long-term vision for risk products, and the second gave an overview of the Financial Risk extension to Safeti. All the presentations were well attended and received.

The puplished papers are available for downloading below.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
DNV Software hosted a CPD Workshop on “Quantitative Risk Assessment” with the focus on the use of software in the QRA process. This workshop, provided by tutors Henk Witlox and Panos Topalis, was attended by almost 50 delegates. It provided an overview of the QRA process, with hands-on exercises, concentrating on the use of our software with demonstrations where appropriate.

Comments Henk Witlox: “This provided us with an opportunity to demonstrate the key benefits of using DNV Software when performing your QRA. Using software like Phast, Safeti and Leak will greatly accelerate the time to completion and helps ensure consistency between different analyses”.

QRA workshop tutor Dr. Panos Topalis provides assistance to delegates during an exercise.

Papers:

• Flashing liquid jets and two-phase droplet dispersion
• Modelling of the consequence of hazardous multi-component two-phase releases to the atmosphere
• Consequence modeling of LNG marine incidents
• Moving Beyond Compliance - The role of risk tools in improved operational performance
• Process Business Risk - A methodology for assessing and mitigating the financial impact of process plant accidents