What is a SAR Report and how is it structured?

In Oil & Gas, the SAR Report is commonly requested and accepted. But what is this document and how is it structured?

What the Safety Analysis Report is for

SAR stands for Safety Analysis Report, and is defined by NOG070, which is the guideline jointly developed by operators, suppliers and engineering companies, with financial support from the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association.

The SAR is a document that analyzes the SIL capability of a set of devices used within a SIS (Safety Instrumented System) according to the IEC 61511 standard. The first objective of this paper is to verify that the safety requirements defined in SRS are met.

The SAR generally is carried out in the case of the integration of multiple components, but NOG070 indicates that it can also be issued for single components, obviously only indicating the relevant information.

Contents of the SAR Report

A typical index of a SAR Report is organized in this way:

• Introduction
• System Description
• System Topology and Block Diagram
• Operational description of the system (including modes of operation)
• Assumptions
• Failure rate of the components
• Common Cause failures (CCF)
• Diagnostic Coverage & Safe Failure Fraction
• Behaviour of system/components on detection of a fault
• Factory testing
• Proof testing
• Architectural Constraints
• Avoidance and Control of Systematic Failures
• Effective time to repair
• Software documentation
• Results