Constructability, Hazard Identification, and Process Simplification in Early-Stage Oil and Gas Facility Design: A Systematic Review of Engineering Practices and Safety Outcomes

Abstract

Early-stage design decisions determine how oil and gas facilities are built and how much hazard they contain, yet the engineering practices that address these questions have developed in separate research communities. This systematic review examines three practice domains in early-stage facility design: constructability, hazard identification, and process simplification through inherently safer design. Following PRISMA 2020 guidance, records were identified through publisher platforms, scholarly search and backward citation chaining, and 301 peer-reviewed journal and conference articles published between 1978 and 2021 were included and coded by domain, sector, method and attention to safety outcomes. The evidence base is broadly evenly divided among the three domains but uneven in sector and method. Only 42 included studies address oil and gas facilities directly; constructability evidence comes almost entirely from building and industrial construction, and hazard identification and inherent safety evidence from chemical processing. Conceptual and methodological contributions dominate, computational methods are concentrated in hazard identification, and only 49 studies relate practices to measured accident, incident or performance outcomes. The review finds consistent evidence that design contributes to a large share of process and construction accidents, but weak evidence on the safety return of specific early-stage practices. An integration framework and a research agenda are proposed to connect the three domains through shared design data and outcome-linked evaluation.