HIPPS | High Integrity Pressure Protection System

Secure your Oil & Gas facilities: design, certification, and SIL assessment of IEC 61511-compliant HIPPS systems for exploration, production, pipelines, and LNG.

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HIPPS (High Integrity Pressure Protection System) is an Instrumented Safety System that complies with the SIL standard:

  • To cope with pressure increases in oil and gas production facilities.

  • Prevent the risk of overpressure in processing equipment in the event of accidental complete reopening of process control valves.

The HIPPS system must have a comprehensive design, ensuring high reliability and integrity.

This applies mainly when a processing facility is designed with a lower pressure than the inlet facility. It is an integral part of project development and investment cost.

Our areas of application

We offer system integration services to the oil and gas industries in various fields.

  • Integrated Control and Safety System (ICSS): Distributed Control System (DCS), Safety Instrumented System (SIS), Local Area Network (LAN), etc.

  • HIPPS: High Integrity Pressure Protection System

  • Pipelines: Leak detection controls, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)

  • Project management: Quality Assurance (QA), Quality Planning (QP), Scheduling

  • Functional Safety: IEC 61508 & IEC 61511

  • Cybersecurity: IEC 62443

  • Processes: Dynamic pressure accumulation analysis Digitalization

  • Automation: Software - Coding

  • Instrumentation: Data sheets - Definitions

  • Documentation: Documentation control - Supplier data

  • Functional Analysis: ICSS - SIS, Control narratives, FCW & OCWR

Our offer

We manage both aspects of HIPPS system integration:

  • The system so that it becomes: functional, easy to use and maintain, efficient, scalable

  • The project: management, implementation, engineering, V-model, management activities, construction, commissioning, interface coordination.

We cover the main phases of the safety life cycle of the IEC 61511 standard.

Our activities

  • Oil and gas exploration and production: Floating Production, Storage, and Offloading (FPSO) units, onshore and offshore facilities, etc.

  • Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG): receiving terminals, compression units, gas trains, LNG terminals, LNG carriers.

  • Pipelines: pumping stations, leak detection

Our team of experts is mobilized to respond to projects with significant technical challenges (obsolescence studies, hot transfer, HIPPS safety systems, migration master plans, OCWR (Overall Control of Well and Riser) and FCW (Full Control of Wells) well optimization systems, etc.) in demanding environments (offshore, onshore).

Our deliverables

We can provide a complete SIL study and HIPPS file including:

  • Functional design specifications and operational instructions within the installation.

  • Reliability study of the physical HIPPS (Instrumented Safety Systems) provided.

  • Updates to the LOPA (Layer Of Protection Analysis) and SIL (Safety Integrity Level) assessment, if applicable, during project execution.

  • Periodic testing procedure.

  • SIL certification by notified third parties.

  • Maritime certification by DNV (Det Norske Veritas) or equivalent upon request.

  • ATEX/IECEx certificates where applicable.

Group presence

The Snef Group operates across four continents—the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Oceania—in 30 countries and 80 cities, with a network spanning more than 100 international locations.