Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Quote
HSE " Success in managing major Hazards is not measured by the Occupational Health and
Safety Statistics but by measuring the performance of critical systems used to control risks to
ensure they are operating as intended.
This statement is a very powerful statement and i want to stand on the premise that it should
form the basis of assessing and formulating regulation regimes.
However let us look at the sensitive details of this statement and compare to what has been the
safety approach historically
Safety Statistics- HSE says whatever models we have as a measure of success in safety approach
it should not be based on whether an accident eventually occurred or not or how many times it
occurred but on the measurement systems predefined. but if we look at the the history of safety
regulation and Legistion from the First known safety Legislation in 1862 the incident of the
beam of a pumping Engine at Hartley Colliery in Northumberland land which broke the only
mineshaft and means of ventilation, 204 miners suffocated and died. that gave birth to mining
Legislation two years later that required every seam in a mine to have two shafts or outlets to the
present goal getting (Safety Case) Regime, which is as a result of the piper Alpha incident, it is
historically obvious that the only reason why regulators feel that there is a need for revive is after
a major disaster.
So in the real sense Legislation has always been on the basis of safety statistics
Measuring the performance of critical control systems: If I try to understand what this means it
tries to say that Safety process and systems should adopt PROACTIVE Measures rather reactive
measures. In other words we should be able to estimate the lets says probabilistically to
effectiveness of the system even before any incident is likely to occur.
This brings us to my main Point if we need to determine the performance of a safety systems
proactively and every single Legislation/Regulation approach in history has always been a
reactive approach then the Premise upon which the safety Regime has been built though has been
quite effective is yet faulty and requires urgent reviews. I am sure that is why these Accidents
keep reoccuring and reoccuring even when we think we have made significant progress we still
continue to have accident(The Marcondo Well 2010 )
Michael Saiki
Proactive measures rather than reactive measures
In addition to Michael Saiki's point on our current reactive measures to safety instead of a
proactive one, here are some of the accidents that have occurred and how they continue to show
our reactive attitude to safety in the industry.
March 28, 1980, Alexander Keilland capsized and sank off the coast of Norway in the North Sea
killing 123 people. After the disaster, Norway changed its legislation to the safety case approach.
February 15, 1982, Ocean Ranger capsized and sank off the coast of Newfoundland in the
Canadian waters killing 84 crew members on board. Nobody on the rig survived the accident.
Canada also adopted the safety case approach to improve the safety in its offshore operations.
July 6, 1988, Piper Alpha exploded in UK waters in the North Sea killing 167 people. The Piper
Alpha disaster was the worst offshore disaster in terms of death toll and its impact on the
offshore oil industry. After this disaster, the UK also overhauled its offshore industry and came
up with its Offshore Installations Safety Case Regulations.
However, not until the recent Deepwater horizon oil spill disaster which occurred on April 20,
2010, the safety legislation in the US has not been reviewed to adopt a mandatory safety case
approach instead of the prescriptive approach currently been used.
How many more human lives are we going to sacrifice before the regulators and operators alike
adopt a more proactive approach?
Michael has said it right. Though the HSE regulations have been so far appreciably
effective, they are somewhat more reactive than proactive. Over the years it has been
obviously known that there is a need for a step to step procedure in achieving an
effective proactive HSE culture. Many efforts towards this have shown that it will also
take personal commitment and self-responsibility on the part of the HSE
regulators as well as operators to achieve this. The Reactive HSE Culture is
concerned with what went wrong? In other words, any improvement in HSE
performance is only due to learning from incidents after they occurred. This is
still a common approach worldwide despite evidence that with this model it is
not possible to achieve continuous HSE performance improvement. The main challenge
here is with the reporting and monitoring processes. Reporting tools provide
data only after accidents have occurred. These accidents may be health, safety,
security and/or environment. The reportage of these incidents are mostly classified
as accidents and near-misses. However, because the significant potential of
the near-misses can be hardly realized, it is not reported properly and this
can translate into undesired consequences.
To have safe oil and gas productions, it is expedient that HSE regulations
become as proactive as possible and shouldnt wait for the occurrence of an accident
to revive or review regulations, just like the case of the piper alpha incident.
In addition to the ongoing discussion we will observe that safety in the oil and gas industry has
never been taken to heart till on the 27th December 1965 when the Sea Gem Sanked and 13 lives
were lost. The major routine before this incident was just to collect a license from the then
government and start exploring and exploiting this mineral resource from the seabed without
knowledge of the implications to Health, Safety and the Environment. No measures were put in
place until a woke up call of the 27th December incident of 1965.
Learning from this, its obvious that this era was practically reactive in their approach to safety.
A little further into the early 80s on February 15, 1982, Ocean Ranger capsized and sank off the
coast of Newfoundland in the Canadian waters killing 84 crew members on board. At this time,
there was again a need for a wakeup call because of another reactive approach to safety.
It will be taught that a lot of lessons should have been learnt from all this reactive approach
pertaining to the oil and gas safety measures and there have been a mitigation plan in place to
stop reoccurrence. But instead it was another blow on April 20, 2010 the Deepwater horizon oil
spill disaster.
The Deepwater horizon oil spill disaster of April 20, 2010. Now the question here is that:
1. Why is it that the incident is allowed to happen or occur before we start thinking of
solution?
2. Are we really learning from the lessons or we are just busy documenting for record
purposes?
I called this approach a reactive one. A proactive approach should be in place if there is no one
available or it should be improved than its current state or measures. It should involve ways of
identifying the following:
A safety system that requires industry to identify hazards, assess the risks and follow best
practice to manage them; and
Comprehensive emergency response framework. At the same time, their should be a review
panel highlighting the importance of continuous improvement and the scope for raising standards
through:
improving the learning culture and processes for spreading best practice;
robust arrangements to ensure operators level of liability and ability to pay in the event
of a spill; and
Proactive integrity management approach to Safety and Risk measures will be the only way
safety of the oil and gas industries can be most guaranteed in the nearest future as against
reactive approach. Or else we will be learning again.
I see the comments about a reactive vs proactive approach in the offshore oil industry but I hate
to break it to you that it is not likely that we will move to a more proactive approach anytime
soon. I think regulators and Oil majors would definitely tell us what we want to hear but in
principle, it is not likely that anything would change. THE PROACTIVE APPROACH STARTS
WITH THE REGULATORS. I will take the Deep water horizon accident for example. We know
that on offshore installations, blowout preventers (containing powerful shear rams designed to
cut through the drilling rigs steel pipe and shut off a well that has gone out of control) are
installed to provide redundancy if all else fails. In 2001, the Minerals Management service,
commissioned a study that revealed over 100 failures in the testing of blow out preventers and
were advised by experts to enforce the operation of TWO SHEAR ARMS in blow out preventers
for all offshore installations. . Historically as with enforcement agencies (The Energy department
ignored recommendations to apply offshore, the CIMAH regulations already in place onshore in
1975, and we know how their ignorance paid off) they ignored the advice and one wonders if this
second shear ram was present, maybe, just maybe the deep water horizon accident would have
been avoided. Controversial reports alleged that the Mineral Management service neglected to
enforce a rule that required oil companies to provide evidence periodically showing that their
shear rams did in fact work (New York Times, June, 20, 2010).
What makes it worse is that, the same article in 2010, said that at the time, roughly two-thirds of
the rigs in the gulf still had only one shear ram as opposed to TWO as prescribed by experts in
2001. I bet if another survey was carried out today, that fraction would be the same and these
companies are still in operation). Correct me if I am wrong but I think the regulators are given a
free/lenient pass when an accident occurs and it is the oil companies that fact the wrath of the
media, public, and the same regulatory bodies. I think the regulators do not come under enough
fire and this is why their lapses are ignored and downplayed. The regulators only react to
incidents and accidents instead of being proactive. And finally to answer the question about how
many more human lives must be lost. My answer is more from more accidents until somebody
starts to hold regulators more responsible.
It is not surprising to learn that many of the regulatory agencies / bodies have very close ties to
oil companies or share holdings even but there appears to be a very unclear and uncontrolled
policing of the regulators and conflicts of interest aplenty.
Is there any examples of successful regulation? every example i can think of seems to have failed
in a huge way......Banking, Politics, Media/TV/Newspapers....
Medicine and Science seem to do it from within almost and appear at first glance to use the
profession to manage the professionals?
Is education, certification and professional memberships the best means of identifying and
nurturing the best attitudes and cultures that will ensure that industries are policed effectively.
The US really uses prescriptive regulation which can result in companies waiting to be caught
and punished whereas the UK safety case and PFEER regs push the companies to PROVE their
safety and risk management practices. NPD and PSA in Norway employ a similar regime
whereby performance based regulations, standards and processes are applied as frameworks for
companies to work within, monitoring their own management systems with auditable assistance
obtained or periodically enforced by the agencies eg DNV.
Who does it best? Does UK/Norway do it best? The US is now looking at UK/Norway as they
seek to make step changes in their command and control structures and regulatory systems.
Should there be GLOBAL regulations? to protect OUR WORLD and FUTURE? Is this
workable?
SUT event "Macondo - Lessons and implications for the North Sea"
You may like to attend the SUT event "Macondo - Lessons and implications for the North Sea"
on next Wednesday (10 October) and challenge the speaker.
Given a large number of the offshore platforms in the North Sea have now exceeded or are close to
exceeding their original design life, it is recognized that there is an increased likelihood of equipment and
asset integrity failures due to material degradation. This has the potential to lead to an increase in major
accidents if not addressed.
Strategy for KP4 - Ageing and life extension inspection program 2010 - 2013 [1] is a strategy aimed at
promoting awareness of the issues associated with ageing plant in the offshore oil and gas industry.
- to raise awareness within the offshore industry of the need for specific consideration of ageing issues as
a distinct activity within the asset integrity management process and, in particular, of the need for senior
management to demonstrate leadership on and commitment to this matter;
- to define a program of inspection of individual duty holder approaches to the management of ageing and
life extension to ascertain the extent of compliance with the regulatory requirements;
- to identify shortcomings in duty holder practices on the management of ageing and life extension and
enforce an appropriate program of remedial action;
- to work with the offshore industry to develop a best practice common approach to the management of
ageing installations and life extension, including the development of long-term plans, for implementation
in safety cases and thorough reviews, to ensure the continued safe operation of all ageing offshore
installations on the UKCS."[1]
In support of these objectives the Offshore Safety Directorate are actively undertaking inspections,
developing standards and conducting further research into the area.
To me this demonstrates an extremely proactive approach to one of the biggest challenges facing the
industry over the coming decade. I encourage you to read the KP4 document referenced below and
welcome any further discussion.
Sure Andrew, the regulations
Sure Andrew, the regulations even further demand that the duty holder reviews the safety case to
ensure its still a live document, sound and applicable to the current conditions. This is another
example of how proactive the HSE regulations get. For proof of this I quote this from the KP4
strategy that Andrew has touched on in his post; Regulation 13 of the Offshore Installations
(Safety Case) Regulations 2005 (OSCR) requires duty holders to thoroughly review current
safety cases within five years of the previous acceptance or review, to confirm that the safety
case as a whole continues to be fundamentally sound, and continues to demonstrate the effective
identification, management and control of major accident hazard risks on the installation, as
described in Paragraph 187-190 of the L30 Guide to OSCR 2005. And again one of the main
aims and objectives of this KP4 strategy on ALE is to identify areas of improvement and further
encourage these improvements in ALE management.
I agree with Andrew and Ambrose on the proactive approach of the HSE.
However, an interesting dimension to the work of the Health & Safety
Executive, even though they are the regulators is that they also sponsor
research and provide guidance to the industry through research-oriented
papers to advance knowledge for the industry, document their concerns
especially in particular areas, and present a focus of engagement between
the regulators and the industry. Through their wealth of publication, they
engender positive knowledge sharing and encourage use of best practice.
Other pro-active measures will have to be by the industry itself. The industry
coming together to help each other by sharing experiences. The experiences
of most operators are similar in most cases and there are common themes to
issues being experienced by operators. The Step Change in Safety is a forum
that provides an opportunity for an industry approach to address such topical
issues. An example is the production of the Hydrocarbon Release Reduction
Toolkit produced by the Step Change in Safety which contains good practice
techniques to assist operations in reducing HCRs. The type of Joint Industry
solution to topical issues such as happened post Macondo in the UK for
example where there was the setup of the Oil Spill Prevention and Response
Advisory Group (OSPRAG) to fund and procure a well capping device and
enhance the UKs capability to respond to a major, sustained release of oil.
The difficulty of detection brings us to Uncertainties which begin from known unknowns to
unknown unknowns". In our industry,
we deal with multi-disciplinary capital intensive facilities/operations which have many latent
hazards. To ensure safety, reliability and to make economic sense therefore, we need pragmatic
and conscientious approach in confronting these challenges, hence a risk management program
which involves risk and decision analysis.
In doing risk analysis, probability models, reliability theories and statistical inference (which
considers amongst others the frequency of occurrence) provide a practical approach in
identifying and quantifying the occurrence of these uncertainties. These tools look at the
likelihood of the uncertainties occurring (probabilities assessment), how often (frequency) they
are likely to occur and the impact of the undesired consequences should the uncertainties
occur/events fail (consequence assessment). Amongst others, some of the tools
that help to analyses these four necessary evils in risk management are the Bow-tie
Analysis model and Swiss Cheese Analysis model.
to further strengthen the discussion i would like to say that we cannot say that we have an
effective safety management regime if we put the responsibility of safety solely on the
Employers and Industry as is the case in this present Regime.
The implication of this is that the Industry or employers are driven by profit oriented objective
and shareholders value chain.
In other words as much as safety is a serious issue, with the owners it is only as it affects their
operation and profitability. especially in the subsea sector where every operation is capital
intensive.
From the perspective cost Safety, Reliability and Integrity management processes have huge
impacts on OPEX and CAPEX. and thus, every employer seeks to minimize this cost
Or should we wait until we have another High impact accident before we begin another Regime
OSPRAG
Priorities
The UK industry coordinated its response to the issues arising from the Gulf of
Mexico incident by structuring OSPRAGs work according to four priorities:
Minimizing the length of time and volume of any escape of good hydrocarbons
Ensuring sufficient financial arrangements are in place to cover the response to any spill
In order to meet their priorities, they are sharing the best practice and developing new device. Initiation
was reactive but subsequent action would be effective in preventing or minimizing future
incidents. Proactive measures are the best for minimizing catastrophic. But at the same time reactive
measures would be also required for preventing same type of accident?
Changhwan, I will like to highlight the point you raised above on Minimizing the length of time and
volume of any escape of well hydrocarbons.
At a recent event organized by the Society for Underwater Technology (SUT) titled Macondo -
Lessons and implications for the North Sea, Brian Kinkead, a Consultant and Lead of the
Technical Review Group which produced the OSPRAG capping device, gave a presentation on
the development of the OSPRAG cap.
During the question and answer session, one of the attendees asked a question on how long will
it take between the time an oil spill occurred and when the well capping device will be installed
in place on site. The response from Brain was quite shocking. He said that based on some
estimated calculations, it would take about 6 Weeks to transport, deploy and install the capping
device.
Approximately 6 weeks? That is approximately half the time it took BP to cap the Macondo oil
spill in the Gulf of Mexico without any Emergency Response Plan (ERP). What I will like to
highlight here is even though we have an ERP in place, it will still take this long to cap a well in
the North Sea. How many thousands of barrels of oil would have spilled into the sea, how many
marine life would have been lost, what extent would this spill have covered, and what will be the
cost of cleaning up a spill which has been running for about 6 weeks?
Im sure cost will be a limiting factor for the response to take that long. Why dont we increase
the cost and reduce the time in order to save lives and protect our environment.
SAFETY & RISK MANAGEMENT: RANK THE TOP TEN SEVERE ENERGY
RELATE
The Chinese Mining Industry: in 2008 there were 3000 deaths these included Zhenghou; 25
deaths, Shanxi 38 deathsand the lies goes on. The underlying issue here appears to be lack of
regulations and hence less regard for workers wellbeing before profit. Many of the accidents are
attributable to poisonous or volatile gases. Chinese government has blamed illegal production
and although safety improvements and procedures are being introduced they are still very often
ignored. Until Government can enforce these, the situation is unlikely to improve. The PRC
government see the enforcement costly, and difficult due to geographical problems associated
with enforcement. For example many of the mines are located in rural areas that are remote and
difficult to access. It appears that this growing economy still has a long way to go achieve safety
standards that we in Europe are accustomed to.
St Frances dam break 1928 resulting in 450 deaths, and the destruction of the town of Santa
Paula. The cause was found to be a result of an ancient geological landslide on the eastern side of
the dam. The 1920s technology was not advanced enough to identify this. The damn collapsed
as a result of the full hydrostatic load in the reservoir after a heavy rainfall. Thus exerting excess
stress to the eastern side. To put this into perspective; the constructions foundations were
unsuitable on the eastern side of the dam and collapse was certain. The release of the Flood wave
said to be in excess of 40m cascaded the town of Santa Paula. During the inquiry there was
conflict between the Government departments, the geologists and the design and engineering
departments. The hearings in the aftermath recommended that "the construction and operation of
a great dam should never be left to the sole judgment of one man,
Piper Alpha 187 deaths. Lead to radical change in regulations for offshore installations. The
incident was said to have been caused by miscommunication during a maintenance operation on
a Pressure relief valve. This was said to have been moved from a gas compression module and
replaced by a blind flange. The flange was only hand tightened as the operations were said not to
restart until later in the day. When they did restart the Valve was missing and the flange was still
only hand tight. Ignition was then imminent. Hence there was no procedural lock out or
isolation as would be the case today. The Cullen report was issued in the aftermath and a series
of recommendations were implemented; including the necessity for Duty Holders to produce a
safety case. The introduction of several Statutory instruments were also introduced which
regulated the design and construction of offshore installations. Initially this was regulated by the
Dept of Energy but nowadays it is policed by the Health & Safety Executive. The report was also
critical of Piper Alpha's operator, Occidental, who were found guilty of having inadequate
maintenance and safety procedures. But no criminal charges were ever brought against them.
Had these safety procedures been implemented and practiced there would have been a strong
possibility that more workers could have escaped, but more importantly; the incident may never
had occurred.
Aberfan; Waste coal product that was stock piled adjacent to a primary school. After a spell of
poor whether the waste and deluge had cascaded; as would a normal landslide, and buried the
primary school. 116 children and 28 adults were killed. Today we are aware that such a pile
would be hazardous but back in 1966 this was not the case. The government appointed Mines
Inspectorate were only employed to ensure that the mines themselves were safe. Lord Robens the
Chairman of the NCB had been seen to be callas by the public and did not visit the site until his
return from holiday. Indeed when ordered to make the site safe he used 150000 from the public
donations fund to remove the waste to safe disposal. The following Davies Inquiry had found the
NCB responsible for this disaster and the Government had introduced Her Majestys inspectorate
of mines and quarrys, along with new legislation. During Tony Blairs reign as Prime Minister
the 150,000 was returned to the fund with an apology but no interest was paid. The disaster
itself happened very quickly without any prior warning. The timing unfortunately played a key
role as the children in the school were all assembled in the main school hall, which was directly
in the line of sight of the land slide. That day the visibility was said to be 50m but clear at the
top of the heap. The previous wet weather had played a big part in releasing the product.
Alexander L Kielland: a Norwegian drill rig that capsized due to fatigue fractures on the
structures cross braces. 123 deaths. In 1980 the platform had just completed a campaign at
EDDA and was anchored offshore when the weather had seen 40 knot winds with 12m waves.
Whist the majority of the 200 workers on board were off duty in the cinema, a loud crack was
observed and it transpired that 5 out of 6 of the anchor chains had broken and the platform
started to capsize. The list increased during which time the workers had tried to evacuate but
experienced major difficulties releasing the life crafts. In fact of the 50 life crafts on board only
one was successfully launched. Whilst the evacuation was in progress the final anchor had gave
way, and the structure capsized. Investigations found that a small fillet weld to attach a
hydrophone bracket to a cross brace was incompletely welded and thus caused a stress point in
the cross brace. This had failed causing the bracing to collapse in the attributed storm. It was
later found that the design of the platform had not allowed for any redundancy in its structure.
Furthermore the evacuation procedures were criticized and the lessons learned from this had
been implemented in the OPITO type safety training we know today. Finally the one contribution
that may well had been the root cause of the accident, is that the platform was originally built as
an accommodation module only and had makeshift modifications applied to it for oil
exploration.
Greymouth Pike River Mine New Zealand, underground explosion resulting in 29 deaths. A
total of 4 explosions were detected. The cause of the explosions are still unclear but were there is
definitive evidence of an abundance of Methane Gas present. The possible safety measures not
used in the Pike River Mine were; a "tube bundling" gas measurement system, stocks of food and
water, breathing apparatus, and a second entrance. These are mandatory requirements in UK
mining but it is still unclear whether this was a key factor in the loss of these lives. The
Investigation is still ongoing
Deep Water Horizon / Macondo Gas blow out. Appears to be failure of safety equipment to
function in an emergency resulting in 11 deaths and a catastrophic environmental disaster.
Investigation is still ongoing. Latest reports suggest that procedures were not followed and
Safety equipment such as blow out preventers were not fully tested before use. The Whitehouse
oil spill commission leading the inquiry has collectively blamed Halliburton, Transocean and BP
for making time and money savings whist compromising the integrity of the well. Some of the
failures in procedures included failure to run cement bond tests, the use of a cement diagnostic
tool, ignoring failed pressure tests etc. The committee did not, however, place the blame on any
one of these events. More so it concluded with the following statement blaming the management
of Macondo Better management of decision-making processes within BP and other companies,
better communication within and between BP and its contractors and effective training of key
engineering and rig personnel would have prevented the Macondo incident The jury is still out
with this incident and I can only assume that more evidence will be revealed as the litigation
process continues
Chernobyl ; Ukraine former eastern bloc nuclear explosion in reactor 4 resulting in an initial 31
deaths and a radioactive leak that has led to illnesses and fatalities including thyroid cancer.
There was a sudden power output surge, and when an emergency shutdown was attempted, a
more extreme spike in power output occurred, which led to a reactor vessel rupture and a series
of explosions. The INSAG (The International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group) had concluded
that there were gross violations of regulations but the USSR state committee had disagreed and
reassessed the causes. They state that the INSAGs assessment was too erroneous and stated that
items such as the turning off of emergency systems is not a violation. Following the accident,
questions arose about the future of the plant and its eventual fate. All work on the unfinished
reactors 5 and 6 was halted three years later. However, the trouble at the Chernobyl plant did not
end with the disaster in reactor 4. This reactor was sealed off in concrete whist the other reactors
were still in service due to the energy shortage created by the disaster.
Iraq gulf war. Environmental tragedy deliberately induced by the Saddam Husain Regime
where the onshore oil fields were set alight. The disaster is manmade as a result of a political war
that today is seen by many as illegal. Husain had ordered the wells to be set alight to ensure the
oil was not taken by his
enemies
Apart from the odd exception in the above top ten; such the Fukashima disaster (which was the
product of a natural phenomenon), the remaining disasters have one thing in common. They were
all avoidable. The avoidance of these disasters can be attributable to peoples behavior. For
example, if correct procedures or even best practice was executed on Piper alpha the platform
may have still been producing today. If the Chinese mining regulations were followed maybe
many of the fatalities would have been averted. Today many of the Energy Companys and Main
Contractors are focusing more on Behavior Safety. The thought behind this is to encourage
employees to alter their unsafe habits regardless of how great or small the consequences may be.
This may be as simple as holding the hand rail whilst ascending or descending a stairwell. The
concept here is that; whilst tools are available such as procedures, risk assessments, correct
equipment etc, there is a need to focus on correct use; ie follow procedures, use equipment as
instructed by manuals etc. To put this concept in perspective consider a situation where you have
just put your new shoes on for a night out. Your lace is undone and unnoticed. You are then
descending a stairwell and you trip. Case 1: you are not holding the hand rail, and the likely
consequences from an inevitable fall could be anything from a minor injury, serious injury that
may have lifetime affects or even death. Case 2 you are holding the hand rail and you trip. The
natural body reaction would be to tighten the grip on the hand rail reducing the likelihood of a
fall. Indeed the likelihood is that you would probably end up in a sitting position on the stair with
a few bruises or a sprained wrist from the grip. The same concept can be applied in any work or
play situation where our behavior is changed to reduce or eliminate the risk
Oil and gas industry is a broad industry that is divided into two sector namely upstream and
downstream sector. While upstream sector is majorly offshore base and deals in exploration and
process of crude oil and gas, it poses equal amount of risks to human in comparison to
downstream sector which is onshore base in most cases and engages in further processing and
refining crude oil and gas.
In oil and gas industry, the most highly rated hazards in term of severity of consequences are
highly combustible and toxic hydrocarbon gas and flammable liquid, the crude oil itself. The
concept of safety in design make provisions for these hazards to be safely confined in their paths
of movement and containments without or with control exposure to environment. Some of the
accidents that have occurred on offshore facilities includes:
-2005 - Bombay High, ship collision with platform and riser fire, 22 fatalities
Similar events have also occurred on onshore facilities. Recent examples include:
(source: RPS Energy, Preventing Major Accidents in Oil and Gas Industry, Nov 2010)
However, the integrity of these hazard containments is compromised by a number of factors that
cause their unplanned release to environment with undesired consequences. Some of these
factors include:
- Human interference while carrying out day to day activities on these containments.
In broader view all other factors are embedded in these four main factors.
Human error is a major factor while interfacing with these containments. Major oil and gas
companies have put in place a number of behavioral base safety program incorporated into their
overall HSE program, behavioral base safety programs are geared towards educating the
workforce the consequences of their actions when dealing with this equipment. Also, commonly
used is a system of work permit system and equipment isolation procedure to prevent unplanned
release of hazards from their containment. Also standard equipment repair procedure should be
in place, if properly followed, the likelihood of making fatal mistake by personnel while working
on these equipment would be reduced. Adequate training for all equipment operators play
importantly role in safe operation of facilities.
Still on the theme of the obvious lapses in the regulations guarding health and safety in the
offshore oil and gas industry today, i want to highlight a new perspective to it. Do the oil
companies truly have value for the lives of employees, third party contractors and the
environment?? The answer is NO. These companies are required by law to have in place the
fanciest HSE policies and procedures, HSE departments, draw up safety cases and mitigation
methods, all these requirements they fulfill, but the bottom-line remains that these companies
push the limits of nature and technology to squeeze out ALL resources possible from the north
sea(oil and natural gas) to satisfy shareholders and various boards of directors. Various reports
have shown that the oil rigs in the North Sea are FALLING APART with most of them having
exceeded their design lifespans (most installed in 60's and 70's) and even the more recent ones
lagging behind in scheduled maintenance programs. these companies are rolling out funds to
push the limits of technology to extend even further ALREADY EXPIRED INSTALLATIONS
and in the process jeopardizing the lives of employees, third party staff in the pursuit of
continuous production. It is not rocket science, you can only push equipment so far
(maintenance, extending useful life) at some point, equipment would FAIL. In my reading about
the TOTAL Elgin gas leak earlier this year, an article in the daily mail revealed that employees
on the platform had expressed safety concerns predicting a gas leak less than a month before the
accident but employers had assured that should a leak occur, there were adequate safety systems
to protect lives of employees at risk. Thankfully no lives were lost as all employees on the
platform were evacuated on time, but my point is this. Operations in the area are risky by default,
why knowingly expose employees to even higher risk profiles and "hope" that safety systems
would protect them in the event of an accident? I think regulators have a lot to do in terms of
ensuring oi majors reduce risk exposure of employees to the barest minimum regardless of
revenue sacrificed or safety systems in place.
The oil and gas industry throughout all these years since its early days is
considered one of the most daring and among the most dangerous
occupations of all time. Safety and risk management is considered vital in
the oil and gas industry in order to avoid and limit undesirable accidents.
These accidents very often may conclude into serious injuries of the workers
involved and also fatal in many occasions like the history taught us
throughout these years.
In other words, safety and risk management is to prevent undesirable
disasters such as:
The Piper Alpha disaster on 6 July 1988 in the North Sea, killing 167 workers.
Gulf of Mexico oil spill on 20 April 2010, 11 people killed and huge
environmental catastrophe occurred due to a good blowout.
In order to ensure the maximum possible safety in the oil and gas industry,
engineers and any other engaged members in the oil and gas industry must
perform in their highest level of
engineering, operating and maintenance practices. Moreover, in order to
prevent major incidents from happening we must learn from the past. Data
and facts from previous incidents must be analyzed in depth in order to
uncover shortfalls and gaps in the management system performance. Finally,
monitoring is also very important especially in multi-level barriers in order to
prevent any possible setback or incident from happening.
In discussing health and safety in the oil and gas industry as well as all other industries in
general, I believe there are a few inherent factors that need to be discussed. Factors such as the
purpose and procedures for investigating incidents, and as has being point out by previous
discussion about the reactive nature of the health and safety system in general, ensuring
that lessons learnt can used to improve Health and safety in the oil and gas industry.
Hazards associated with temperature and flammable materials, taking special note of
terminologies such as Flash point (lowest temperature at which vapor above a volatile liquid
form a combustible mixture with air); Flammability and flammability limits (i.e. the proportion
of combustible gases in a mixture with air. This is usually categorized into Upper flammable
limit and Lower flammable limit. Other hazards worth mentioning include Toxicity (which is the
degree to which a substance is able to damage an exposed organism). Toxic entities can be
chemical, biological or physical. There are Skin Irritants which are stimuli or agents which
induce a state of irritation. Irritants are usually thought of as chemical agents but mechanical,
thermal and radioactive stimuli (such as ultraviolet light or ionizing radiation) can also be
irritants. Also substances with Carcinogenic properties such as asbestos, certain dioxins and
tobacco smoke are hazards which act as agents directly involved in causing cancer.
There are a host of other hazards such as Hydrogen, Methane, LPG, Nitrogen, hydrogen
sulphide, oxygen, additives (such as anti-foaming, anti-wetting agents), micro-biocides,
corrosive preventatives, refrigerants, water/steam, the list goes on and all contribute to hazards
inherent to the oil and gas industry. In the design of oil and gas plants, emphasis is always
placed on designs which either eliminate or minimize exposure/risk to all/most of these hazards
as low as is reasonably practicable.
UK offshore oil and gas industry is a major hazard industry; the sector demonstrates a relatively
low lost time injury rate and has, for many years, outperformed a number of comparatively lower
hazard industrial sectors in the UK. A report states that there were just two
fatalities in the UK offshore oil and gas industry and that was at the first UK continental shelf
fatalities in a four- year period. Human safety has been given priority hence the reduction in the
number of fatalities and injuries.
Hydrocarbon release has also reduced drastically since the introduction of the regulation on their
emissions.in 2010 , HSE started a program to look into the reduction of hydrocarbon releases , in
April 2012 HSE published data to show that the was a continued improvement in the reduction
of these emission. The reduction target was set for all hydrocarbon releases, it was noted that
there was 40% decrease in major and significant releases and this was attributed to the program.
Another factor attributed to improvement in safety in the sector was proper maintenance and
repair of offshore plants. The safety-critical parts of offshore installations are subject to a
verification process to ensure that they are suitable for their intended purpose and remain in good
condition and repair. These verifications are done by independent competent people.
1. Flaws in the safety culture of the organization and sometimes the whole industry:
Organizational culture is the set of shared values and norms upon which decisions are
based. Safety culture is simply that subset of the overall culture that reflects the general
attitude and approaches to safety and risk management. Safety culture is primarily set by
the leaders of the organization as they establish the basic values upon which decisions
will be based. Lack of real commitment to safety by leaders: Management commitment to
safety has been found to be the most important factor in distinguishing between
organizations with high and low accident rates [Leveson, 1995].
3. Inadequate hazard analysis and design for safety: Instead of putting the emphasis on
designing safety into the system from the beginning, the major emphasis is instead placed
on recovery from adverse events or investigating them after they occur.
4. Flawed communication and reporting systems: In a surprisingly large number of
accidents, unsafe conditions were detected prior to the actual loss events or precursor
events occurred but were not adequately reported or investigated so that the loss event
could be prevented.
5. Inadequate learning from prior events: Prior incidents and accidents are very often only
superficially investigated. The symptoms of the underlying systemic causes of the
accident or incident are identified as the cause of the events but not the underlying flawed
processes or culture that led to those symptoms.
Given this system and control view of safety, we can identify the flaws in the safety control
structure that allowed the Deepwater Horizon accident to occur and what can be done to
strengthen the overall offshore oil and gas industry safety control structure. The general key to
preventing these occurrences in the future is to provide better information for decision making,
not just for the government regulators but for those operating the oil rigs.
There are many changes that would be useful in strengthening the safety control structure and
preventing future oil spills, these changes are:
industry standards: One of the surprises that emerges in the investigation of an accident
is the lack of standards in the industry, for example standards for cementing operations
improved.
Certification and training: Another lesson learned from the investigation of the
Deepwater Horizon accident is that some workers have minimal training and little
certification is required. The changes needed here are obvious.
Learning from events. A systems approach to accident and incident investigation needs to be
implemented by everyone in the industry in order to improve the learning and continual
improvement process [Leveson, 2011]. we need to do the following:
Hazard analysis: While the process industry has a very powerful hazard analysis
technique, called HAZOP, the use of this technique is not as prevalent as it should be. The
results from HAZOP need to be used to improve technological design and also passed to
operations to guide maintenance and performance audits.
Integration of safety engineers into operational decision making: One of the surprises to
me personally in the Deepwater Horizon investigations was the lack of any operational
safety group advising the decision makers on the platforms. If such a group existed, it did
not play an important enough role to be mentioned in the description of the events that
occurred. Industries with strong safety programs include a person or group that is
responsible for advising management at all levels of the organization on both long-term
decisions during engineering design and development of new platforms and on the safety
implications of decisions during operations. In most other industries, a safety engineer
would have been resident on the platform and involved in all the real time safety-related
decision making.
this steps however should be followed to ensure an effective safety management system in the oil
and gas sector to reduce the risks of accident occurrence
SAFETY AND RISK MANAGEMENT IN OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY
Every day, the oil and gas industry contends with an array of safety concerns throughout its
range of operations. In the face of increasing regulatory oversight, as well as increased public
scrutiny, oil and gas industries have implemented and are still implementing effective safety
management systems to help protect their workers, the general public and the environment.Oil
and gas companies have established specific systems, programs and processes to manage and
monitor activities that affect their safety performance, management systems that support safety
sustainability and business performance throughout the full life cycle of their assets.The
following are some of the programs and systems used by oil and gas companies, to manage their
safety performance:-
2. Incident and near-miss investigation. Companies adopt different tools for their near-miss and
incident investigation. Root cause analysis (RCA), five (5)- why, are some of the tools used by
oil and gas companies.
3. Management of change (MOC) system design. This is a system that is put in place to
manage change which may be a temporary or permanent change, especially if what to be
change has a safety concern.
4. Permit to work system. This is a system that is put in place to manage and control the day to
day tasks that are carried out. Tasks that are likely to impact the safety of the personnels are
further reviewed, so as to have more controls in place and done in a safe manner.
5. Lock out and Tag out (LOTO). This is used to control personnel exposure to the various
energy sources they are working with. Locks are fitted to either a mechanical or electrical
isolation and can only be removed, when the tasks have been completed. Tags are also used to
create the same awareness as a lock.
Risk are inherent in every forward-looking business decision. As a result, there has been a great
deal of work done and resources invested in risk management in the oil and gas industry in
recent years.
Financial and regulatory risks have been the focus of much of this effort. But more recently,
companies have started including operational risks, process safety risks, prioritizing them, and
thinking about how they can manage and monitor all risks in a coordinated way. An effective risk
management system needs to offer solutions tailored not only to the industry, but also to the
specific company and the sectors in which it operates.
REFERENCES.
3.http://go.chevron.com/fatalityprevention.
RS
Oluwaseguu, I agree with the point that an effective risk management system must offer solution
that is not only tailored to fit the industry but must also be company specific.
Leading Oil and Gas Companies like shell, Chevron etc have well established safety and Risk
management systems that ensures that the safety of their operations are guaranteed. These
companies most often have invested billions over the years in safety related matters. For such
companies the measures you have outlined is easy to comply with. But what about smaller or
emerging companies with smaller oil fields? The drive to make profits for shareholders may
often override investment in Safety because it is expensive.
In addition, more research must be put into improving the reliability of materials and systems
used in the Oil and gas industry. As efficiency of systems improve, safety also will improve.
Hi,
Reference
[1] http://www.opito.com/uk/library/emergency_response_training/bosiet_bridg...
Regards,
When talking about Health and safety in the oil and gas
industry, one major regulation comes to mind which is the Offshore Installation
(Safety Case)Regulation 2005 (SCR05)1.
Extracting from the regulation, r.12 states:
1.
Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (HSWA).
2.
Offshore Installations (Prevention of Fire and
Explosions and Emergency Response) regulations 1995 (PFEER).
3.
Offshore Installations and Wells (Design and
Construction, etc) Regulations 1996 (DCR)
4.
Control of Major Accident Hazard Regulations
1999
5.
EC Directive 96/82/EC on control of major
accident hazards involving dangerous substances. (Seveso II Directive).
6.
Chemical (Hazard Identification and Packaging for
Supply) Regulations 1994 as amended (CHIP2008).
7.
Control of Substances Hazardous to Health
Regulations 2002(COSHH).
8.
Reporting of Injuries, Disease and Dangerous Occurrences
Regulations 1995. (RIDDOR) Please note this regulation buttressmy point in my earlier
comment about the need for systematic approach to recording and reporting of incidents in the
workplace.
To some
extent, the above interior factors can be avoided or controlled if appropriate
measurements are taken. Nevertheless, some exterior factors like asset nationalization
by the government can hardly be anticipated and manipulated by companies. In
2007, Exxon-Mobil and ConocoPhillips lost billions
dollars in Venezuela
because of the oil asset nationalization. Available from
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/201215194512924679.html.
The identification of
is beginning to have a profound effect on the way risk and safety are managed
the basis of certain factors that are indicative of the organisation's `state of safety'.
The oil and gas industry now faces its strongest set of challenges in terms of risk and compliance
regulations. Recent events such as the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
have further brought to light the presence and relevance of such regulations
Companies in the oil and gas industry must deal with their own unique set of risks, whether
natural, man-made or operational, as part of their daily operations. The approach that works well
at an offshore installation may not be the best option for a refinery. An effective risk management
system needs to offer solutions tailored not only to the industry, but also to the specific company
and the sectors in which it operates.
References :
http://www.ehow.com/about_5348311_offshore-drilling-dangers.html
Xenios Zenieris
As has been discussed previously in this forum, the operator has to identify the hazards, assess
the risks and implement measures to remove or reduce the risk to as low as reasonably
practicable, all of which is documented within the installation's safety case. The safety case then
has to be accepted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) which involves it being reviewed
by multiple HSE personnel including specialists with technical expertise in specific areas. Six
months is allocated to this process to allow queries to be resolved and revisions made.
Operations cannot start until the safety case is accepted.
In addition, the operator must identify all the safety-critical elements (SCEs) of the installation
and prepare a written scheme of verification to test and examine the SCEs to ensure they are and
remain fit for purpose. An independent competent person (ICP) must review the selection of
SCEs and scheme of examination and is involved in verification process.
The Offshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations 2005 (Great Britain, 2005) defines safety-
critical elements as:
"such parts of an installation and such of its plant (including computer programmes), or any
part thereof-
(b)a purpose of which is to prevent, or limit the effect of,a major accident;"
These are just two examples of where checks are placed on the operator in key areas of safety.
Reference: Great Britain. The Offshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations 2005 [Online].
(2005) Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/3117/made [accessed
07 October 2012]
On top of this are the requirements for a safety case and the
written scheme of verification for safety-critical elements (such as the
blowout preventer), as previously discussed.
In addition, the operator must provide weekly reports to the HSE
detailing work carried out on the well and its current state.
Reference: Great Britain. Offshore Installations and Wells (Design and Construction, etc.)
Regulations 1996 [Online]. (1996) Available at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1996/913/made
[Accessed 08 October 2012]
That is not to say that regulator should not take action for
gross breaches of safety management or when the risk to personnel is
intolerable. It can and does, either by
issuing improvement notices that require specified action to be taken within
the given timescale, or issuing a prohibition notice that shuts down an
installation.
It has been suggested by several people in this discussion that the UKs goal setting regime
places too much responsibility place, but I believe it is important to consider the risks of a
prescriptive regime and also the flexibility of the goal setting regime.
A prescriptive regime could to lead a safety by numbers approach where individual situations
are not adequately evaluated to consider their particular conditions and risks. It could lead to a
false sense of security in that the necessary legislative requirements have been met therefore the
operation is safe.
Under the UKs goal setting regime the HSE issues guidance for offshore regulations and in
some cases approved codes of practice (ACOPs). ACOPs are designed such that if a company
were to follow one they should be in compliance with the relevant legislation. However, it is not
a get out of jail free card as the requirement to assess hazards and reduce risks to as low as
reasonably practicable will always take precedence. Conversely, a company is not required to
follow the ACOP, but if they were taken to court over a health & safety failing then they would
have to prove that that that the safety measures in place were at least equal to the ACOP.
Guidance notes do not have the same legal standing, but deviation from them or industry
standards and good oilfield practice would almost certainly be questioned in a prosecution.
This system gives flexibility in that good standards are defined there is a prescription that can
be followed but within the freedom allowed by the goal setting regime new and better practices
can evolve. If these practices are then used to update the defined standards then the system will
continuously improve.
***Apologies for the formatting in these posts. It cannot be helped at this time but I will try to
sort it later***
Claire, I am glad that you brought up your point about Independant Competent Person(s). I
would very much like to add to the discussion on this point.
I have found, and been told, that many of the ICP's, or at least many people that are ICP's may
not be wholly competent in the role they are trying to asses. Lots of ICP's are in fat just going by
the regulations they have written down in front of them instead of using the experience of the
people they are working with, or indeed the people they are auditing (or similar), to figure out
whether a practice is safe.
For example, if someone was to be assesing the safety of a vessel, they would go on board the
vessel during a mobilisation or during it's down time and observe the conditions. However,
the better way to observe the safety of a vessel is to be on board during operations. Watching the
people go about their jobs as if you weren't there.
However, the old adage of 'Never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes' may be
applicable here. Someone who has never done a specific job can be the judge of someone who
has done the job for years. The person who has done the job for years has built up all of these
ways of making a job easier for himself, and then an ICP can come along and destroy all of his
methods due to safety concerns.
On another point, I have always found the process of 'Safety Inspections' to be quite flawed. As
with any type of inspection, generally people are warned to be on their 'best behaviour', so I feel
the true way to inspect for safety is to use some sort of remote system, ie cameras etc which can
observe without people thinking they are being observed, only then do you get true behaviours.
Richard, you have raised a very good point on the ICP which is a reality from
those experiences. There exists the frustration of the ICP simply going by the
letter of the regulation. I guess the moot point, though, is does that mean
that the operators are running foul of regulations? That said, I feel there is
still a positive to having the ICP especially if they can engender the quality
discussions that should go on between the ICP and the dutyholder on the
condition of each Safety Critical Element.
The responsibility for operating safely still sits squarely on the shoulder of
the Duty Holder so a decision to either accept, consider or reject any ICP
recommendation will need to be taken by operators as the duty holder. Duty
Holders have personnel known as Technical Authority who must be
technically competent and are responsible for evaluating and making
engineering and other technical judgements on the operations of safety
critical elements{1}. In my opinion, the best way to obtain an advantage
from this relationship is to have a sort of constructive tension between the
ICP and the Duty Holder to ensure there is a continuous challenge both ways.
With regards to the issue of competency, this is quite a big issue which
applies to not just the ICP but the oil & gas industry as a whole and will take
not only the operators and regulators but all stakeholders to establish
competency frameworks for the industry.
Reference
1. http://www.hse.gov.uk/offshore/kp3.pdf
Adejugba Olusola
Safety Inspections
Whilst safety inspections may not be totally effective for the reasons
mentioned, I think the idea of "snooping-in" on people remotely on
cameras whilst at work may not go down so well with a lot of offshore
workers. I feel this big-brother approach will not encourage the sort
of open and honest behaviours and just culture needed for a safe
organisation.
Adejugba Olusola
I agree with Claire's comment on offshore installations (Safety Case) regulations with respect to
safety-critical elements. It has been well researched that major offshore accident and hazards
could have been avoided if strict compliance and best industry practice were observed and
implimented to detail and specifications but the challenge is often cutting corners and human
factors.
Attending the last GASECH 2012 CONFERENCE in London where I listened to a presentation
of LNG Shipment and Bunkering risks and challenges by the Llyods Register, I then appreciate
the need for stringent compliance to offshore HSE regulations. There are always releases of
hydrocarbons during tieing in via loading and offloading of gas, fuel or diesel and this a major
challenge to the industry.
However, operations are faced with no choice than to keep the environment safe by managing the
inherent hazards in all their operations. With the golden era of SHALE GAS and Floating
Liquidified Natural Gas (FLNG), the risk level will ultimately rise and call for critical
survelliance by regulators and coastal agencies to checkmate the activities oil and gas bunkering.
VICTOR ITA
ETIM
51126236.
OGE.
Kevin K. Waweru
At Jesse (Geographical coordinates 5.870 N, 5.750E) a town in the Oil rich Niger Delta Region
of Nigeria on the 17th of October, 1998 an oil pipeline belonging to the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and served as a link between an oil Refinery in the south
eastern town of Warri and the Kaduna Refinery in the Northern part of the country was engulfed
by fire. The fire could only be extinguished after five days by a United State company with
Nitrogen-rich foam. It took the life of over 1200 people including children, youths, and
adults. It is indeed a great disaster.
It was found out that the cause of the fire was as a result of leakage from a pipeline. The pipeline
was laid in the early 70s and ought to have been changed. It was also discovered that there were
no safety devices on the pipeline as it was designed with old technology. It was finally concluded
that the cause of the fire was due to ageing of the pipeline and lack of maintenance by the
company involved.
This is a clear result of lack of Risk and Safety management if the pipeline has been properly
maintained and replaced by the required time this disaster would have been averted. After the
incidence it was recommended that the pipeline be replaced and remidiation be carried out on the
spilled area of land and the families of the victims be duly compensated.
REFRENCE:
I would like to generate some discussion around the issues to be considered in the layout of a
new facility so as to minimise the risk to personnel working on the facililty. Below are a number
of considerations, please expand on my discussion thread with other issues you think should be
considered:
It is important when designing a new facility that you maximise the separation distance between
areas where personnel will regularly be stationed, and high risk process areas. On an offshore
platfrom this often means having the drilling/wellhead area at the opposite end of the platform
(or on a separate bridge linked platform) from the Accommodation module. In doing so you
minimise the likelihood of major accident events in the wellbay area from impacting personnel
within the accommodation module. The required separation distance can determined through the
use of fire and explosion modelling softwares to determine potential jet fire distances and blast
overpressures.
In designing an offshore platform, large process vessels and containers for storage of hazardous
chemicals should preferrably be situated on a lower deck, such that in the event of a loss of
containment, the liquids drain to the sea rather than cascading onto equipment below. In the
event of a fire, having a large vessel leaking flammable liquids onto equipment below greatly
increases the likelihood of escalation and should be avoided if possible. If this is not possible
then installation of a plated deck with appropriate bunding and hazardous closed drains can be
used to safely transport any flammable liquids away from an area, thus reducing the likelihood of
fire. One such example of a hazardous inventory would be the flare knock out drum, this is a
vessel which collects flammable liquids from the flare system. This vessel is usually situated on
a lower deck of a platfrom such that the liquids can freely drain to the vessel, and so that in the
event the vessel leaks that the inventory is released to sea rather than dripping down onto process
equipment below.
In doing this you greatly increase the level of confinement as you essentially box in volumes of
space which have the potential to fill with flammable vapours in the event a leak occurs. Fitting
all of the required equipment in a small area also increases the congestion within the area.
These two factors, confinement and congestion, have an impact on the explosion overpressures
experienced in the event of delayed ignition of a flammable gas cloud. Confinement and
congestion aid in accellerating the blast overpressure wave, increasing its destructiveness. This
can have a devastating effect on the immediate area and lead to escalation due to damage to
surrounding equipment.
In offshore facility design it is important to maximise the natural ventilation of a space in order
to minimise the likelihood of flammable gas clouds forming. This can be done through a number
of means including:
- use of grated decks rather than plated decks to reduce confinement and encourage natural
ventilation
- Use of forced ventialtion in enclosed modules where natural ventialtion is not possible
These are just an example of the steps which can be taken to reduce the likelihood, and
consequence of an explosion offshore.
Given the small footprint of an offshore platform it is often not possible to provide physical
separation between process equipment in order to reduce the likelihood of escalation. Instead,
fire and blast walls are often used to segregate areas and reduce the impact of a fire or explosion
in an area.
Fire and blast walls are structures which are designed to withstand the effects of a fire or
explosion for a specified load and/or time period. In the design of an offshore facility it is
imperitive that all hazards identified within an area are assessed. This is often done through the
use of fire and explosion modleling softwares to predict the magnitude and duration of an event
given certain process conditions. This modelling then allows the designer to select an appropriate
fire/blast wall design to ensure the wall remains intact for the required duration, thus minimising
the likelihood of escalation.
One example of the use of fire/blast walls is in the design of an offshore temporary refuge. The
purpose of a temporary refuge is to provide an area for personnel to muster to assess an event
and decide on the appropriate means of escape or evacuation if required. To enable personnel to
take refuge the TR must be adequately designed to withstand the effects of foreseeable fires or
explosions for a sufficent period of time for personnel to take the required action. The
survivability of the TR is ensured through the use of fire/explosion proof cladding along with
HVAC design.
Performance
monitoring and measurement should:
be used as a
means of determining the extent to which OSH policy and objectives are being
implemented and risks are controlled;
include both
active and reactive monitoring, and not be based only upon work-related injury,
ill-health, disease and incident statistics; and
be recorded.
Monitoring
should provide:
feedback on
OSH performance;
. information
to determine whether the day-to-day arrangements for hazard and risk
identification, prevention and control are in place and operating effectively;
and
the basis
for decisions about improvement in hazard identification and risk control, and
the OSH management system.
As a follow
up to my earlier comment, I thought I would talk more on Active and Reactive
montoring
Active
monitoring should contain the elements necessary to have a proactive system and
should include:
monitoring
of the achievement of specific plans, established performance criteria and
objectives;
the
systematic inspection of work systems, premises, plant and equipment;
surveillance
of the working environment, including work organisation;
(d)
surveillance of workers' health, where appropriate, through suitable medical
monitoring or follow-up of workers for early detection of signs and symptoms of
harm to health in order to determine the effectiveness of prevention and
control measures; and
(e)
compliance with applicable national laws and regulations, collective agreements
and other commitments on OSH to which the organisation subscribes.
Reactive
monitoring should include the identification, reporting and investigation of:
work-related
injuries, ill-health (including monitoring of aggregate sickness absence
records), diseases and incidents;
other
losses, such as damage to property;
deficient
safety and health performance, and OSH management system failures; and
Occupational Health
and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS 18000).
Occupational Health
and Safety Management Systems (OHSAS 18001/18002), BSI
In United States, BSEE regulates how safe and environmentally sound are the Operator's method
to extract oil.
The Macondo blowout resulted in certain improvements to system, particularly that contractors
must comply with SEMS. (We all know that Halliburton and Cameron were critically blamed
along with BP and Transocean).
In general, SEMS applies to all drilling, production, construction, well workover, well
completion, well servicing, mobile offshore drilling units, and Department of Interior pipeline
activities and is based on the following element of previously voluntary API RP 75:
- General
- Safety and environmental information
- Hazards analysis
- Management of change
- Operating procedures
- Safe working practices
- Training
- Assurance of quality and mechanical integrity of critical equipment
- Pre-startup review
- Emergency response and control
- Investigation of incidents
- Audit of SEMS elements
- Records and Documentation.
REFERNCE
To further elaborate on the SEMS, Operators need to pass SEMS audit within two years of
November 2011 and every three years thereafter. SEMS plans are to be audited be an
independent third Party. Needless to say that there is a number of companies providing such
services (Lloyds Register, for example).
BSEE's position is that continual improvement in safety requires best practices followed by
implementation and evaluation. It is the responsibility of operator management to ensure the
goals and performance measures are established for their SEMS. (a good example of goal-setting
legislation).
* Side note. 10 out of 11 people responsible for well control and who failed to detect gas "kick"
on 8 March 2010 (blowout averted, however) were on duty on 20 April 2010 when Macondo
blew out.
** Side note. Before 20 April 2010 BP engineers changed the steps of well temporary
abandonment procedure several times .
REFERNCE
Safety Plan
If SEMS audit shows any non-compliance to the safety program, there could be fines imposed on
the operator up to $35 000 / day until the subject is closed and, in severe cases, the whole facility
could be shut down.
There are six stages in the life of a structure and all six
stages require inspection management. They are:
Design
Manufacture
Service life
Decommissioning
Reference: HSG48
uchenna onyia 51232632
Safety issues for the LNG industry Storage of the LNG and conversion
to its gaseous phase
References: http://www.beg.utexas.edu/energyecon/lng/documents/CEE_LNG_Safety_and_Se...
Xenios Zenieris
Topic 9
Topic
9
Safety
and Risk management in oil and gas industry
Regarding safety,
environmental issues must be concerned also. Steps should be taken for any
instrument malefaction because if any problem will take place oil and gas leak
is very pollutant.
http://www.hsepeople.com/
Safety issues for the LNG industry Storage of the LNG and
conversion to its gaseous phase
Inside the LNG storage tanks, the liquids that are introduced
sometimes are from different densities and for that, several layers of the liquid
are created. The liquid with the higher density goes to the bottom and the
lighter to the top. The heat from the side walls leaks inside to the top layer
and the heat from the side walls and from the bottom walls warms up the heavier
liquid. Once the heat warms up the bottom liquid, it starts to evaporate and
because of the hydrostatical pressure the vapor is superheated and may cause sudden
increase of pressure in the tank. This phenomenon is called rollover. This excess
pressure may result to crack or other structural failures of the tank and to
avoid this to happen; the density of the liquid that is introduced in the tanks
is always measured and if the density is different the liquid is unloaded
accordingly. LNG tanks have rollover protection systems, which include
distributed temperature sensors and pump-around mixing systems.
References:
http://www.beg.utexas.edu/energyecon/lng/documents/CEE_LNG_Safety_and_Se...
http://www.igu.org/html/wgc2006/pdf/paper/add11684.pdf
http://www.physike.com/oldweb/%E4%BD%8E%E6%B8%A9%E6%B5%8B%E8%AF
%95/scien...
Xenios Zenieris
We all know how important training is for the operation of complicated and sophisticated piece
of equipment. Especially when mishandling it might result in catastrophic damages.
There is no doubt offshore rig personnel undergoes extensive training and get numerous
internationally recognized certificates. Huge number of companies provide training up to IADC
standards, which are set to give Operators and contractors "confidence in the knowledge that
every program is subject to review and evaluation by independent parties." [1].
Transocean, as the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, probably has the best and most
extensively trained people in charge of well control.
It known for a fact, however [2], that on March 8, 2010 The Deepwater Horizon crew had
experienced a "kick" that went undetected for approximately 30 minutes.
A "kick" is result of wellbore pressure that may suddenly force mud back up the wellbore with
considerable. Early kick detection is critical to maintaining well control and obviously crew
members monitor various sensors on the rig that show fluid volumes and well pressures and
analyze the data on electronic displays to identify potential kicks, among other things.
BP did not conduct an investigation into the reasons for the delayed detection of the kick.
Transocean personnel admitted to BP that individuals associated with the
March 8 kick had "screwed up by not catching" the kick.
Moreover, ten of the 11 individuals on duty on March 8, who had well control responsibilities,
were also on duty on April 20 during Macondo blowout.
On the top of that, everyone on board the Deepwater Horizon was obligated to follow the
Transocean "stop work" policy that was in place on April 20, which provided that "each
employee has the obligation to interrupt an operation to prevent an incident from occurring."
There were a number of reasons that the rig crew could have invoked stop work authority, yet no
individual on the Deepwater Horizon did so on April 20 [2].
REFERENCES
1. www.iadc.org
2. BOEMRE report on Macondo Blowout
Industrial Standards
Oil and Gas industry has evolved from a very basic setup. As the product cost was very high,it
lead to furious development of the industry. Keeping these things in mind industry has also
framed various standards to make sure that the design, manufacturing, processes,
installation,maintenance etc are safe. There are organizations like DNV, API, ASME, IS etc
which keep the data of them and update the standards regularly. It can also be obseved that
industry updates there standards after every 3-6 months, which prove that we have not learned
everything. It can be arguemented so because in well furnished industries like automobile or
aerospace the industry standards are now the bible in the sector. Eg. DNV 2.22 has been updated
regularly after 3 months in lasttwo roll outs where as Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)
have there standards fixed since 1987 in terms of automotive field.
The point where I want to throw the light is that since the "STANDARDS" which are supposed
to control the Oil & Gas activities from concept to installation and then to decommissioning are
still floating, which proves that all the aspects of safety and health are not fully in practice.
Hence its a responsibility of the companies to carry out third party verification for them to ensure
H&S.
http://www2.worksafebc.com/i/posters/2012/WS_12_01.html
http://www.ehs.gatech.edu/chemical/mercury_and_compounds.pdf
Xenios Zenieris
I read a very interesting article the other day in Octobers issue of The Naval Architect which,
I think closely relates to reliability concepts we are reviewing in Safety Engineering course.
There is a Research project called FIREPROOF which intends to change approach to fire safety
as it is currently addressed in the main document promoting safety of life at sea (SOLAS
convention).
SOLAS, which is applicable to Passenger / Cargo ships, Drill ships and Mobile Offshore Drilling
Units uses probabilistic approach for calculation of damage stability in its Ch. II-1 , but
deterministic in Ch II-2 which deals with fire safety.
The projects objective is to develop a Risk-Based approach to fire safety, taking into
consideration a number of novel designs for ships and drill ship which will emerge due to global
economy downturn and resulting competition of shipbuilders.
In a nutshell, the Risk can be summarized by the formula:
Risk can therefore be represented in conventional Potential Loss of Life or F-N curves.
The researchers used a number of modern software to account for various scenarios of high and
low consequences of fire ignition and escalation.
Topic 9
Permalink Submitted by Lee Soo Chyi on Tue, 2012-10-23 04:53.
Regards,
Lee, SooChyi
Two days earlier an unfortunate incident took place. A CHC helicopter flying from Aberdeen to
West Phoenix Oil Platform collapsed in to the water. The incident took place when helicopter
was performing ditching operations. It is assumed that the reason was low flying and rough sea
or fuel error or anything else. The location of crash was 32 miles South-West from Shetland.
There were 19 people aboard and 3 were from Oceaneering. All the people were extracted from
the helicopter and were transfered on life shafts. Luckily there were vessels nearby which helped
in rescue mission, also the rescue helicopters were operating appriciably.
All the people were safe including pilot and co-pilot and reached the mainland safe and sound
today evening (24th October 2012). Oil and Gas Union is now raising question for the safety in
north sea. Agencies are actively looking into the issue and helicopter is getting towed to the
mainland, investigation will follow once its on the aberdeen land.
A controlled ditch was performed by the pilots of the G-CHCN Super Puma EC225 LP after
warnings that of a failure of the lubrication system of the main gearbox (AAIB, 2012a). First an
indicator light came on warning that the duty and standby lubrication pumps had failed, then,
shortly after the pilots initiated the appropriate procedure to engage the emergency lubrication
system, the warning light came on that indicated the failure of the emergency lubrication system.
The investigation being carried out by the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AIBB) is still in
the early stages, but initial investigation of the gearbox components has found a full 360 degree
circumferential crack on the bevel gear vertical shaft within the main gearbox, near the weld
joining the two parts of the shaft. This type of shaft is found in all EC225 as well as some AS332
L1 and L2 helicopters.
What is particularly important to note is that a similar ditching of the same type of Super Puma
helicopter in May 2012 occurred after warnings that both the main and emergency gearbox
lubrication systems failed (AAIB, 2012b). The early investigation into that incident also found a
360 degree circumferential crack on the bevel gear vertical shaft within the main gearbox (the
cause is still being investigated).
Following the May incident the European Aviation Safety Agency issued an emergency
airworthiness directive on AS 332 and EC 225 helicopters that required helicopter operators to
check vibrational health monitoring data related to the gearbox. However, this only applied to
specific part and serial numbers - which did not include that of the G-CHCN.
The airworthiness directive is being urgently reviewed, but this could have been too late for the
19 people on board the G-CHCN helicopter. Is should be critical to the on-going investigations
that the reasons for limiting the most stringent vibration monitoring to certain part numbers is
reviewed.
References:
AAIB. (2012a) Special Bulletin S6/2012 - EC225 LP Super Puma, G-CHCN [Online]. Available
at http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/S6-2012%20G-CHCN.pdf [Accessed 28th
October 2012]
AAIB. (2012b) S3/2012 - EC225 LP Super Puma G-REDW [Online]. Available at
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/AAIB%20S3-2012%20G-REDW.pdf
[Accessed 28th October 2012]
Safety
and risk management in the oil and gas industry has always been a major issue
and a stand-point for major oil industry disasters. Ranging from the deepwater
horizon to the famous piper alpha accident, it has always been one of reactive
rather than proactive approach. After the "keep it flowing" people
incident, the later regulations demanded that for every installation, there
must be a document to demonstrate how risks had been identified, the nature of
the control measures to be employed and the adequacy of these measures in
providing safe working conditions. Now, the point is that the regulator who has
certified these documents will not be on the platform on daily basis to see to
the effective implementation, thus, it lies on the duty holder and its
employees.
To
me i would rather that these measures be carried out with all sincererity of
purpose for it is only by adherence to the principles and technologies in place
that accidents may be prevented as employers always blame major accidents on
employee sabotage.
It is easy to say that companies and regulators are "reactive" and not proactive. However it is
immeasurable to quantify the number of accidents that didn't happen due to a piece of proactive
legislation or implemented safety procedure.
Much of today's safety barriers and procedures result from risk based analysis using probabilities
of accidents occurring. Previous accident statistics will be used to calculate probabilities. Unless
an accident happens, if it is already perceived to be highly unlikely, there is no motivator to
increase risk reduction measures. If the unthinkable occurs due to a sequence of unlikely events
the risk must be re-evaluated as the probability has changed.
Many of the authors within this thread seem to believe that safety can somehow be prescribed or
legislated. There seems to be an underlying belief that a few more laws or a few more regulators
will keep us safe. It appears as if there's a desire to have an army of regulators looking over each
workers shoulder ready to correct them should they stray into unsafe behaviors.
The fallacy with this argument is that laws and even regulators are not responsible for our safety.
We are all responsible for our own safety and the safety of those around us. Though it may
seem a bit clich, I found it to be true no matter what industry you work in. It is normally fairly
easy to spot a "safety minded" company. They are normally the ones in which the employees
drive safety from the bottom up rather than management droning on and on about their latest
safety initiatives. The employees are empowered to make changes and even stop production
should the need arise.
Personal safety
I work in Classification Society and my site office is located inside a major South Korean
Shipyard. HSE policy here is of utmost importance and safety record for lost time incidents is
almost perfect, which is one of the reasons why customers like Stena Drilling, PDC, Maersk
Drilling, Chevron, Shell and others praise it so much.
But one of the key contributors to safety in all the major Korean shipyards is people mindset.
Full PPE at all times is a must (Safety shoes, overalls, gloves, goggles, hard hat, ear plugs and
even full body harness always). Scaffolding constructed with highest level of integrity. Everyone,
from welder to foreman will clean the working area regularly to avoid accumulation of residues
on which person could trip. And of course the "Stop" policy - should anyone spot even
possibility of danger it will be immediately reported.
Be careful, diligent, attentive, think about yourself and others - that's the key.
Safety and risk management should be legislated to ensure standard in our working Environment.
This is done by carrying out risk analysis of the system in all stages of operation: Design,
Fabrication, Installation, Operation /Production and decommission. It helps to ensure that all
possible failures are identified and mitigated as low as reasonably practicable, ALARP before
commencement and during operation for safe and smooth running of the system.
While agreeing with Mr Adavis that employees are responsible for their safety and that of others
around them, his opinion to do not take into consideration systemic failure of the system due to
poor design, failure of component as a result of sharp practices or standards not being adhere to.
Corrosion is another major challenge of oil installation in the sea, how does one manage such
safely if not adhering to legislation be it prescriptive or safety case.
In conclusion, Legislations like the Offshore Safety Case Regs.2005, Health & Safety at Work
etc. Act 1974 and the PFEER Reg. 1995 are meant to guide our activities and the Integrity of
Installations or equipment used while Working safely help reduces occupational hazard and
fatalities.
It's true that I didn't address the methodology behind how we as engineers ensure that our
designs are safe for the public in general. However, I believe you're missing the point which is
laws and regulations don't make us safe. When I design an apparatus or a piece of equipment, I
review the safety aspects not because it's legislated but because its the right thing to do. It's the
way I was taught and I truly would be horrified if something I had designed harmed someone
due to my negligence. There are many tools I use to ensure a safe design. However, very few of
those tools are regulations or laws. Most are simply good engineering practices.
Don't get me wrong. I do believe legislation has a place in the world. I wouldn't want to live in
anarchy. Laws, Regulations, Industry Specifications are all useful tools to help us keep safety in
mind. However, they do nothing to ensure safety. Words on a piece of paper or computer won't
keep you safe, unless someone chooses to review and follow them. Individuals have to decide to
be safe and keep others safe. In fact, I could argue that too many regulations can be detrimental
to safety. I'm sure we can all think of examples of regulations that have grown to the point of
being incomprehensible. A regulation or law can sometimes grow to the point where it takes a
team of people just to understand it. At that point, it's not much use to us as engineers.
I truly believe every accident/injury can be avoided. However to accomplish this, we all have to
change the way we view safety. We have to think about safety at home, at work, as we walk
through the airport...
It touches upon risks and regulations in deepwater drilling. Two authors from United States and
two from Canada review current legislation in US and Canada and have a debate in the end of
the paper. Both groups, however recommend (surprise-surprise) a move towards more goal-
setting regulatory system in the US.
Particularly, they emphasize significant differences between these two countries in national
versus regional control, in prescriptive versus goal-based regulation, in penalties imposed on
companies for infractions, and in the degree of independence granted to the safety regulator
US:
Significant changes were introduced into the regulatory framework post-Macondo.
The late Mineral Management Service (MMS), which was understaffed, having only one
inspector for every 54 offshore facilities in the Gulf of Mexico Region and didn't even have a
comprehensive handbook addressing inspector roles and responsibilities, was replaced by three
separate federal bodies, each with clearly defined responsibilities: to collect revenues (the
Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR)), to manage development (Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management (BOEM)), and to enforce safety precautions (Bureau of Safety and
Environmental Enforcement (BSEE)).
Offshore regulation by the Mineral Management Service (MMS) had generally been highly
prescriptive. There were hundreds of pages of technical requirements that offshore operators
were supposed to follow on specific issues, yet with advance of drilling technologies these
specific prescriptive regulations became increasingly outdated. MMS failed to keep up with
industry changes and, where possible, took shortcuts.
There was also a historical weakness as part of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act
Amendments of 1978 which exempted leases in the western and central Gulf from the
"development and production plan" requirement and, therefore, the environmental review.
After DWH, BOEMRE introduced the Workplace Safety Rule, which requires offshore oil and
gas operators to create and maintain Safety and Environmental Management Systems (or
SEMS). This rule introduces performance-based standards which move away from
emphasizing prescriptive regulations and toward a regulatory environment more similar to the
safety case requirement in the United Kingdom.
BOEMRE also has instituted a Drilling Safety Rule and the Ocean Energy Safety Advisory
Committee was created as a permanent body of experts to provide guidance on offshore safety,
well containment, and spill response
To better prepare its employees, BOEMRE has established the National Offshore Training Center
and has developed its first formal training curriculum for new inspectors.
However, authors emphasize that unlike in other major developed nations such as Canada, the
United Kingdom, and Norway, the U.S. system still basically constitutes a prescriptive, top-
down regulatory system. While this prescriptive system has some benefits, particularly as it
gives the federal government the authority to specify exact requirements, it has trouble staying
current in light of the rapidly changing nature of the offshore industry. Also, a strictly
prescriptive approach discourages any innovation. By contrast, a goal-based system encourages
operators to find better, more innovative ways to achieve safety standards.
Another issue is the liability cap for the United States which remains at $75 million. By contrast,
in the United Kingdom, for example, where average penalties are also relatively low, the
potential penalty for a breach is unlimited. In addition, in both Norway and the United Kingdom,
serious non-fatal safety breaches can be criminal charges punishable through imprisonment of
key executives.
Authors concluded that the United States has made strong progress in strengthening the
framework for offshore drilling but suggest that further improvements could be made
Canada:
Canadian system, which allows the provinces and territories to collect royalties; gives
developmental, regulatory, and safety responsibilities to joint federal-provincial boards; and
allots major decision-making power to local populations.
The boards generate guidelines, while the provincial and federal governments work together to
draft amendments to legislation and regulations.
Each of the National Energy Boards is tasked with the regulatory responsibility to ensure safety,
protection of the environment, and proper exploitation of the resources.
The Board has no part in the establishment or administration of royalties or taxes for any
offshore activity and therefore does not promote the Industry.
After the Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, the Senate of Canada
concluded that the regulation of the industry is more than adequate.
- The shared federal and provincial jurisdiction over the boards means that the persons most
affected by drilling (the residents of the adjacent provinces) have a significant voice in decisions
- The boards have no role in the collection of royalties.
Also, a Certificate of Fitness issued by a third-party certifying authority is to operate all the
equipment on a drilling installation. If a single underlying certificate or permit cannot be
obtained, the Certificate of Fitness is canceled.
In final argument authors point out how difficult it will be for the US to roll-out goal setting
approach.
They mention that any rapid increase in the size of a regulatory bureaucracy presents a number
of risks. More staff and the fundamental restructuring of multiple departments can easily lead to
organizational chaos.
Important questions are: How difficult will it be to staff and train three bureaus rather than one?
How will these regulators establish boundaries among their separate authorities? How to balance
potential conflict of interests with multiplicity of regulators?
Authors cast doubt on the idea of creating more regulators and emphasize, that without a
structured process, there is a considerable risk that the objectives in the new goal-oriented
regulation will follow the old prescribed regulations, or even change for the sake of change
Risk is an essential part in the oil industry. Failure to manage risk can bring an end to a Project.
Risk is any potential future event that may influence the achievement of a Project. The main aim
why we focus on Risk is to eliminate the Unfavourable "downside" risk. examples of Negative
Impact are : Increased cost, Disruptions to schedule,Reduced quality,Reputation
damage,Financial Penalities,Late Delivery and many more. There are alot of Benefits to Risk
Management: Example, Fosters clear understanding of challenges ahead.Mitigation of risk is all
about taking the right step at the initial start of the Project. HS&E goals should be : "NO ONE
GETS HURT AND NOTHING GETS HARMED" .
Oil and gas industry is vast very complex sectorand development is not easy there are many risk
involves like technical risk ,construction risk,technology risk, operational risk ,regulatory risk,workers
risk including various types working at height, chemical exposure etc and it iscomplicated to prevent the
occurrences of incident/accidents.owner,operators,contractors, and suppliers working in petroleum
industry all must find innovative solutions to minimize complexity and risk in these massive undertakings,
as it becomes a top priority to have all players on a project team work more closely together.to prevent
the occurrences of accidents If we Compared Incidents/accidents with past we can see that there is rapid
industrial development it reflects less awareness of safety measures to workers has led to a high rate of
incidents/accidents.
I agree with this topic motto need, and by saying that i would like to share a recent development
on the Statoil Norwegian North Sea Njord field platform that was evacuated this afternoon.
http://www.newsinenglish.no/2012/11/07/hundreds-airlifted-off-tilting-platform/
Instead of trying to fix the problem with all onboard, statoil considered to be a serious matter
and in my view correctly opted to minimise its risk by maintaining strictly needed personel on
board to try and stabilize the problem. We cant forget that the main issue in the Nort Sea is the
water temperature, which for a normal person with those temperatures should only last for 5 or
10 minutes, therefore a quick moving fleet to evacuate was taken.
The platform started tilting because one of the tanks an acnhor ruptured on of the balast the
pontoons in the quarters area ruptured and starting filling up.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/07/norwegian-oil-company-evacuates-workers-after-
rig-starts-tilting/
Ajay Kale
Ajay Kale
The
term safety has been used to an extent that means to preclude the event of
failure. But in our world, every device, and even human life, is bound to fail.
No matter how long it takes, the life of everything comes to an end. Thus, it
has become a necessity that when one event is about to fail/end, it should not
lead to the end of other events which had a, perhaps, longer time before its
end.
It
is usually the duty of business owners to evaluate every possible hazard and
risk at a worksite so as to inform their employees the possibility of danger.
This directive is very well advised. It goes to benefit the government and also
help managers and owners of businesses to correctly protect those who are
helping them generate wealth.
Ideas
from HSE Lectures, EG50S1 and EG501D.
REFERENCES
Today's risk management system is HSE which assesses companies' performance on managing
different types of risks. However, a new system may hopefully replace HSE in the future
according to the report of International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (OGP). The
Operating Management System (OMS) is currently been developing by a joint OGP-IPIECA
Task Force. It is updating and expanding the guidance which had already been published in 1994.
The OMS aims to decrease the probability of adverse consequences by providing a consistent
approach to risk management by:
Consolidating, in one place, the company's knowledge and requirements to safely and
responsibly manage its assets and activities.
Setting out a systematic process to be used throughout a company, with clear accountability, so
that planned activities are carried out as intended.
Measuring the success in implementing these activities.
The revised OMS guidance is planned coming out at the end of this year. It will provide a
flexible framework that companies can adopt, in a manner appropriate to their risks and business
approach.
Reference: http://www.ogp.org.uk/news/2012/april/operating-management-systems-contr...
A very relevant comment Liu Yishan: I clicked on your link and found a mountain of information
about the OMS and an iied report.
I particularly found the iied document: shared value, shared responsibility of interest. It
highlights that employee and contractor influence towards safety is increasing within the oil and
gas industry affecting the environmental and social responsibilities of large organisations. The
future vision of this document aims towards removing the tick-box mentality which hinders
the implementation of good practice standards. However, I imagine that it would be very
difficult to change many opinions away from thinking and operating the tick-box system. This
organisational change of behaviour would have to extent all the way down to the individual
employees and contractors who (I have already mentioned) have a growing influence in their
own methods of working. Change would be a slow process, even with our current safety culture.
Reference: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/16026IIED.pdf
William Wilson
MSc Subsea Engineering
Preventative measures are the most effective means of minimizing the probability of equipment
failure and its associated risk. Protection systems are not substitutes for well-designed and well-
maintained detection, warning and shutdown systems. However, they can protect the structure and
process equipment, limit damage to these facilities and prevent escalation of fire.
For risks lying below the maximum tolerable, but above the broadly acceptable level, it is expected
that:
2. the residual risks are not unduly high and kept ALARP; and
3. the risks are periodically reviewed to ensure that they still meet the ALARP criteria.
Duty holders should not assume that if risks are below the maximum tolerable level, they are also
ALARP. This should be demonstrated through:
In essence, the duty holders ALARP demonstration should address the question What more could
I do to reduce risks, and why havent I done it?
The degree of rigor of the ALARP demonstration should be proportionate to the level of risk
associated with the installation.
2. choose the option which achieves the lowest level of residual risk, provided grossly
disproportionate risks are not incurred; and
3. confirm that the residual level of risk is no greater than that achieved by the best of existing
practice for comparable functions.
Reference:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/offshore/strategy/prevent.htm
http://www.ogp.org.uk/pubs/434-19.pdf
www.isgintt.org/files/Chapter_19en_isgintt_062010.pdf
Adesunloye-Oyolola O.
The
management of safety and risk in the oil industry is an issue of great
concern.
With public concerns and activities of various pressure groups; there has
been
a drive in the industry to achieve near to perfect safe operations. This I
believe
can happen by practicing a safety and maintenance culture. Safety Culture is
seen by many as a way of ensuring high levels of safety performance in
organisations, in contrast to the systematic engineered management of
hazards
and effects. They are mostly defined by values, beliefs, common working
practices and response to unusual situations. However, the development of
safety culture experiences so many obstructions and I discuss a few of them
below.
BUREAUCRATIC
CULTURES: The levels of bureaucracy and red-tapes that exist in the oil
industry and health and safety regulations pose a great challenge which
most
people are oblivious of. An organisation that has struggled to become
proactive
may easily revert, especially in the face of success. At such levels of success
and development, hierarchical structures begin to break down under high
tempo
operations. This is mostly experienced when an organisation tries to transit
from reactive to generative.
REGULATORS
AND THE LAW: This may come as a surprise to most of us but the regulator is
also a form of barrier. Regulators are more inclined to the letter than the
spirit of the law. This can mean that regulators will not support experimental
improvements, which is typical of a proactive industry. Rather, they may set
high standards which are hard to meet and this can be an obstacle for safety
culture progress.
MANAGEMENT
FAILURE: A cultural change is very drastic and doesnt happen overnight.
Changes in top management may prevent the advancement of safety culture
in an
organisation as priorities may also change.
CHANGE
IS HARD: It is very difficult for personnel to accept new situations which are
different from the normal standard procedures of operation. This makes it
impossible for a new convention or code of practice to implemented or
enforced,
or in most cases take longer periods before they are incorporated into the
operating procedures.
The
practice of a well organised safety culture will to a very large extent manage
risk in the oil and gas industry. Though this may at times prove difficult and
costly, a good management practice can ensure they are well enforced.
References
http://ftp.rta.nato.int/public//PubFulltext/RTO/MP/RTO-MP-032///MP-032-08.pdf
I see that all my colleagues have with enthusiasm covered much of the
aspects of Safety in the Oil and Gas Industry and Id like to briefly refer to the
safety training of the individual worker within this industry.
The minimum safety requirements are covered by the acronym MIST; this is
the Minimum Industry Safety Training and the expectation is that all workers
are trained to competently undertake their professional duties, while being
fully aware of the following main points with respect to safety:
2) To be able to work safely and follow all the safety regulatory measures
6) Manual handling
8) Working at height
9) Mechanical lifting.
This training usually takes place over a period of time and the expectation is
not that the new employee will be fully BOSIET trained prior to commencing
work; however this should be completed at the earliest opportunity. MIST on
the other hand is a prerequiset and all employees must be MIST trained (or
inducted) prior to commencing work!
The general values and the approach to safety and risk management. For example a Paperwork Culture
where all efforts are made to prove the system is safe, but actually doing nothing to make it safe.
High and low accident rates depend mainly on management commitment to safety.
Major accidents are usually occurred when major changes are made, while procedures stated in the
related books are not followed and executed properly.
Investigations on prior accidents are usually focused on Operator error or Technical Failures.
Management and systematic factors are usually ignored. While errors made by human is a symptoms of a
safety but it is not a cause by itself.
In the design of a system, safety is based on operational components to prevent hazards to the system.
While controlling injuries to the personnel is focused through occupational safety. While the combination
of both factors will be at risk as safety hazard.
Ref.: http://mitei.mit.edu/news/risk-management-oil-and-gas-industry
Accidents hardly originate from just single cause. What we see when an accident happens is the
event that finally occurs at the time of the accident, such as component failures and human
errors. Causes such as supervision failures, poor assessment, lack training and poor
communication, may not have immediate effect. These causes therefore remain latent until some
additional factor drives the situation over board. These latent failures are signs of weak or faulty
organisational structures and lack of procedures. Key steps in safety management therefore
are prudent hazard identification, assessing the hazards and making sure the appropriate policies
and procedures are implemented, proper supervision, training and above all commitment of
management to reduce the related risk.
The main objective of safety management in any industry is to address the cause of accident and
take action to break the accident causation link. This can be achieved by identifying and
preventing potential failures through hazard identification, analysis of the hazard, devising
control measures, implementing the control measure and monitoring it. It is important to
periodically review the whole prevention measure to assess its effectiveness vis--vis the
accident records before and after the implementation. Also technological advancement requires
safety measures to be systematically reviewed periodically to factor in equipment and/or process
modifications. The success of safety and risk management greatly depends on employers or
management commitment to safety and communication. For example, a decision which requires
resource allocation for personnel training can only be implemented with the consent of the
employer/management.
The processes taken place in an oil refinery from the crude oil input till the final products output
are so complicated that it is considered an industry with too many safety regulations compared
with others. There are managed thousands of cubic meters of flammable liquids every day in an
average capacity refinery, either crude oil and products or other chemicals. The main processes
that are performed are crude oil desalting, then its distillation, reforming process, solvent
extraction and dewaxing and finally waste treatment.
Analyzing the dangers, first of all should be considered the crude oil and its products sensitivity
to any flame source with the continuous fear of igniting a major accident after leakage during the
process. Some hydrocarbon gases are denser than air and tend to be concentrated into the
refinerys drainage system, into pits or any underground areas and access to those places require
safety measures to be taken. Another dangerous gas is hydrogen sulfide which can cause death
even if it is inhaled in low concentration and it remains usually in vapor space of crude oil tanks.
In addition, other dangerous gases produced or used in a refinery are hydrogen which is
explosive, inert gas which can cause lack of oxygen, carbon monoxide which is poisonous,
chlorine which is fatal, pyrophoric iron sulfide which is extremely flammable and many other
process chemicals.
As we can understand from the above concise analysis the safety procedures must be strictly
followed by the refinerys personnel every day in every routine job otherwise the probability of a
major accident is highly increased.
References:
1)National Center for Manufacturing Sciences. Petroleum Refining Impacts, Risks and
Regulations. http://ecm.ncms.org/ERI/index.html
2) Numaligarh Refinery Limited. Safety Manual of Oil Refinery.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/53147746/Safety-manual-of-Oil-Refinery
Health, safety and environmental issues have risen enormously in the oil and gas industry's
agenda which reflects both increased pressure by the society/public and more complex
operational challenges faced in the industry.
Although the industry generally works with high pressure, high temperature and flammable
fluids and in some cases at very hostile operating environments, it has been discovered that for
the past few years as compared with other industries such as construction, mining and transport,
the oil and gas industry safety's performance has been better.
For example, in 2009, the hours of work across the industry rose, and and a 26% improvement in
lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) was recorded as well as an 11% improvement in total
recordable injury frequency rate (TRIFR) (1).
Also, in terms of safety management issues, the areas where all regulated oil and gas companies
must look into and invest both effort and resources in order to ensure continual improvement of
safety and environmental protection include;
1. Corporate leadership and safety culture - the company's senior leaders should be responsible
for overseeing the safety of the company's operation which is vital to the society. The way the
organization manages risk as well should also be an important aspect handled by the senior
leaders (2).
References
1. http://www.appea.com.au/oil-a-gas-in-australia/safety-and-health/overvie...
2. http://blog.fieldid.com/2012/09/3-safety-management-issues-emerging-in-oil-and-gas-
industry/
Safety and risk management approach is largely goal-oriented in the offshore oil and gas sector. This
means that high level performance is required in specifics and various types of analysis method carried
out to spot the best possible arrangements and the key performance indicators for measurement of
success is pre-agreed upon. These places on one hand the duty of care on the duty holders and on the
other hand personal responsibility on the employees as well for their own safety. One of the main
challenges is the concept of acceptable risk criteria.
I believe that the introduction of pre-determined acceptable risk criteria may give the wrong focus
meeting these criteria instead of an overall whollistic approach towards identifying everything that may go
wrong and taking a cost effective measure to its solution. This will involve: identifying the relevant decision
attributes (costs, safety, health, hazard); dealing with uncertainties at different project phase; balance
between project risk and management portfolio; formulation and use of goals; criteria and requirements to
stimulate performance and ensure acceptable safety standards; use of cautionary principles like the
ALARP.
Thus, the focus should be on meeting overall safety objective which should be stipulate using observable
quantities (such as the frequency of occurrence of a particular type of accident no matter how small it may
seem)
RFERENCES
Aven T. and Vinnem J.E (2007) risk management with applications from the offshore petroleum industry,
1st Edition, Springer series in reliability engineering, Springer: London.
As per a blog article on professional societies the feed was stating that: The young engineers who
step in to industry tend to find the easy way. As the company procedures and standards are
difficult to follow than the bookish calculations, hence they have a denial tendency towards the
standards.
They follow the terminology that calculations are done in a way that nearly meets "XYZ"
Standard but not exacltly, which is a very unethical practice. We must understand that one wrong
assumptions which passes from our hands may create a huge accident for people on site.
As Oil and Gas industry is developing at a very faster rate hence the scope of the standardization
industry is also expanding at same rate. Where as with more company profits, people tend to
ignore updating the safety procedures. But its the good fortune of the industry that controlling
societies like DNV, API, LLoyd's etc. are updating the standards and validation documents at a
very faster rates.
Recently Det Norske Veritas has updated its offshore procedure control documents and classified
the structures into various categories which gives a very good control to design and approval
professionals to do their job more accurately. Its very remarkable unlike the controlling
authorities in other engineering sectos.
In relation to oil and gas safety the recent incident that took place on an oil platform operated by
Black Elk energy in the Gulf of Mexico can be said to be one of senior managerial negligence to
safety conduct. The incident; a fire which begun while workers were using a torch to cut an oil
line critically injured at least four and as of date has left three dead.
Coming from reports this is the fourth incident associated with Black Elk in nearly two years
with recent incidents drawing heavy fines including a suit being filed against them (March 2012)
by a rig worker for "creating unreasonably dangerous conditions on the platform".
In September 2011, the company paid a fine of $307,500 after the Federal Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management found that Black Elk let a well go longer than the required six months
without being tested for leakage.
In February 2011, a battery charger caused a fire on a Black Elk rig in the Gulf of Mexico when
the battery shorted.
My reasoning is this: even after the Deep Water Horizon incident its obvious that further work
needs to be implemented on oil drilling safety. Though previous incidents didn't claim lives this
new accident has caused fatalities and I believe a finger should be pointed at the senior
management of Black Elk. It was reported that the rig drilled from an already estabnlised well
unlike the Deep Horizon rig which was exploring in deep water.
So far no evidence of oil spills relating directly to the incident has been reported but in the light
of this one will have to ask if the required regulatory bodies didn't carry out proper inspection on
the oil lines before welding began. Reports say that production seized as of mid-August and the
oil which ignited the fire was that trapped within the pipeline network thus pointing fingers to the
inspection unit for not complying with the set hydrocarbon content limit in pipelines before any
welding job can take place.
Well I can't be too sure as to why the company exposed the lives of these rig workers to such
hazards but whatever reason it might be it sure will have a demeaning effect on the face of Black
Elk and even more on the Safety Regulatory bodies considering the short time lapse between this
and the Macondo incident. Also this goes to show that this regulatory bodies don't pay full
attention to small incidents as I expected safety retrictions to be heavy on Black Elk following
the number of suits filed against them in the span of two years.
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57551062/2-missing-4-badly-burned-in...
Ikechukwu Onyegiri
Safety and risk management in the oil and gas sector is one of the very important aspects in the
industry as accidents in the sector affects peoples property, health and the environment. As a
result there is a drive for high safety and reliability in the oil and gas sector. Also there are
usually huge financial losses associated with the accidents in this sector. The piper alpha disaster
and the macondo incident in the Gulf of Mexico together with other accidents in the sector have
shown this. Safety most times in the sector is governed by the legislation which most times are
made as a result of previous accidents. The legislation can be prescriptive or goal setting. The
prescriptive legislation prescribes the exact actions to be taken to ensure safety in certain
situations while the goal setting legislation ensures that each hazardous situation is individually
analysed and the best preventive steps taken to ensure safety.
Risk management has to do with risk analysis and decision analysis. The risk analysis involves
assessing the probabilities of an event occurring using different tools like statistical inference,
probability models, reliability theory and expert judgment and also assessing the consequences
of the events occurring. With the risk analysis done, different decision to reduce the impact of the
accident event are analysed and the best decision taken to manage the risk. This is how risk is
managed in the oil and gas sector.
Safety and operational risk factors in the oil and gas industry
A number of hazardous risks are inherent in oil and gas operations. Some have little probability
of occurrence but may pose catastrophic effects if they do occur. For example, the BP oil spillage
in the Gulf of Mexico. Safety and operational risks in occurrence may impact the oil company's
cash flows, financial position, prospected projects, goals, and liquidity. Key safety and
operational risks include:
Process, personnel safety, and environmental risks
Oil and gas companies are faced with an extensive range of health, safety, security and
environmental risks due to the nature of the business. Materialization of any of these risks could
lead to legal action and financial loss as well as injure the company's reputation. This category of
safety and operational risk encompass risks posed by natural disasters as well as technical
systems failure which could cause loss of containment of hazardous fluids leading to fires and
explosions. Thus, failure to offer safe working environments for employees and general public
could give way to regulatory actions and legal liabilities.
Furthermore, due to the uncontrollable location of exploitable reserves, oil and gas operations
may be carried out in environmentally sensitive locations which are protected by strenuous
environmental and safety laws. Therefore, the effects of a spill, explosion, and other hazardous
incidents in such locations may prompt sanctions such as penalties, and even the risk of revoking
the licence to operate in that and subsequent locations .
Security
Oil and gas companies face security threats which largely depend on the country they are
operating in. Nonetheless, acts of violence, sabotage, terrorism and disruption of property act to
impede and delay operations of companies. Breaches in security are more common in developing
countries and could also arise due to political unrest. Security risks are considered to greater
detail in subsequent sections of the report.
Product quality
Oil companies risk harming and losing customers as well as polluting the environment if they
fail to meet the quality specifications of their products. In such a scenario could lead the
company to incur sanctions from regulatory bodies as well as some degree of financial loss.
Also, transportation of produced hydrocarbons involves grave risks. Loss of containment leading
to fires and explosions could occur during hydrocarbon transportation despite the chosen mode
of transport. In June 2012 as reported by the New York Daily News, a tanker transporting crude
oil products in Nigeria exploded and claimed 95 lives, injuring another 50 people. A similar
event occurred in Congo claiming 200 lives. This reveals the level of risk involved in
transporting oil products and the severity of the potential impact of such risks occurring.
Kuma Mede
51126022
references:
http://www.bp.com/assets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/set_br...
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-07-12/news/32652122_1_nigeria-truck...
Safety in the oil and gas sector is measured using certain safety indicators. Some of which
includes: Fatal accident rate, serious injury rate, individual risk, lost time injury frequency rate,
annual fatality rate, potential loss of life and societal risk. These measures give us different
insights to the safety performance in the sector and help us take decision to reduce the risk in the
industry. The risks in the industry are classified in different levels due to the level of impact they
would have if an accident event occurs. In the industry, each risk is reduced to a region of
ALARP which is as low as reasonably practicable. This is the region where the risk is tolerable
only if cost of risk reduction is grossly disproportionate to the improvement gained by spending
the money to reduce the risk. If there is a risk which cannot be reduced and its probability of
occurrence is high and it has a high negative impact, then, the risk cannot be justified and is
avoided. Also in the industry, the risk assessment matrix is used to determine the level of safety.
The identification of safety culture as a main contributor to industrial accidents has started to
have a deep effect on the way risk and safety are managed within the oil and gas industry. It
proposes that the occurrence of accidents can be projected on the basis of certain factors that are
suggestive of the organisation's state of safety'.
Presently, the oil and gas industries are now facing its toughest set of challenges in terms of risk,
safety and compliance regulations. Today's corporations (oil & gas industry) are not just weighed
on their economic performance but also on their capability to manage many different types of
risks. A robust track record in managing these risks and providing safety measures are frequently
mentioned as an indicator of a well-run company. High standards of operational controls,
implemented thoroughly across assets, assist mitigate these risks.
The current Macondo blow out incident in the Gulf of Mexico has conveyed sharp emphasis the
need of the oil and gas industry to effectively identify and manage the risk from major accidents.
Delivering effective key hazards management has never been easy, and the consequences for
failure, in terms of impact on human, reputation and assets are becoming more extreme.
Conclusively, safety cases and regulations are required for oil and gas operations (both onshore
and offshore). The principal aim of the regulation is to lessen the risk from major accident
hazard, to the health and safety of the workers employed. The Safety case is a document that
gives confidence to both the duty holder and HSE that the duty holder has the capability and
means to control major accident risks effectively.
References:
1. http://www.xerafy.com/userfiles/misc/resources/whitepapers/XERAFY_RFID_R...
2. http://www.rpsgroup.com/Energy/Services/Advisory/Downstream/pdf/RPS-Fina...
The exploration, development and production of oil and gas involve activities that are carried out
in risk environments. Overtime, major and minor accidents from safety related issues such as
fatalities, severe injuries, loss of properties etc has occurred in the industry; this occurrence has
aided formation of sterner safety regulations in the industry.
Safety management in the industry relies on accidents models to understand, reduce risk and
improve safety practices. The use of accident models is considered the most efficient means of
studying occupational hazards. There are various types of accidents models that can be used
namely:
Safety and Risk Management is challenge oil and gas industry must contend with an array of
health and environmental concerns throughout its range of operations. In the face of increasing
regulatory oversight, as well as increased public scrutiny, oil and gas industry need to implement
effective safety management systems to help protect its workers, the general public and the
environment. The approach that works well at an offshore installation may not be the best option
for a refinery. An effective risk management system needs to offer solutions tailored not only to
the industry, but also to the specific company and the sectors in which it operates.
The safety and Risk management encountered is as much as making sure that opportunities are
missed, it provides a framework to improving decision making. It involves identifying risks,
predicting how probable they are and how serious they might become, deciding what to do about
them and implementing these decisions. Safety and Risk analysis and subsequent risk mitigation
provides financial information to potential lenders, promotes equity providers for project
scenario. It improves project or business planning by answering what if questions with
imaginative scenarios. Safety and risk management in oil and gas industry provides alternative
plans and appropriate contingencies and consideration concerning management as part of risk
response. Decisions are supported by thorough analysis of the data and estimate can be made
with greater confidence both technical and financial.
Safety and Risk management in oil and gas industry is one of the most important issues facing
oil and gas organisation today. Safety and Risk management can be considered as the
sustainability of a business in the environment it is in. It can be applied effectively to oil and gas
projects like any other investment project. The results of risk and safety analysis, both sensitivity
and probability can identify the quantitative effect on a project economics should such risk occur.
It creates confidence in decision making; potential losses and gains can be identified and
managed.
Common factors that cause major accidents in Oil and Gas Industry are: lack of safety culture
among the workers, lack of real commitment to safety by supervisors, inadequate hazard analysis
(example Job Safety Analysis) and design for safety, Inadequate learning from prior events,
confusion between occupational and system safety and belief that process accidents are low
probability.
Reference
Leveson .N.G (2011), Risk management in the oil and gas industry [online] available at
http://mitei.mit.edu/news/risk-management-oil-and-gas-industry [accessed on 8 December]
My
earlier submission leads me to identification of one of the functions of safety and risk
management. For safety and risk management implementation in an industry to be successful a
safety policy and procedure in place this is a corporate statement and guidelines, documented,
that clearly expresses the employers or management commitment to safety in the industry. The
statement must clearly define the safety goals of that industry. The policy must state the
importance of safety in all aspect of the industrys operations. It must identify individually, the
hierarchy of personnel with corporate responsibility right from the board level, and it must
clearly describe the safety standard established. It must also indicate employers readiness to
provide the necessary resource in terms of funds and time to promote safety. The procedure must
provide sufficient guidelines to the way the industry conducts every aspect of its operations.
In addition to safety policy and procedure, other functions of safety and risk
management are:
On each subsea project , a Technical risk analysis is performed by Contractors for all the items
(system/subsystem/equipment) part of their supply, with the objective to identify, assess and
mitigate the technical risks that could impact system availability and production efficiency. This
study is used to feed into the Maturity Assessment required for determinining the Qualification
tests required on the project.
For each risk, Contractors determine cause / consequence / frequency / criticality, and propose
specific mitigation actions in order to minimise the impact of the identified risk.
c) Commissioning,
d) Intervention / Maintenance.
2) Equipment damage
Helicopter safety
Just yesterday a helicopter taking personnel from Aberdeen to an offshore installation was forced
to return to the airport (Joseph, 2012). This comes not long after the ditching of a helicopter in
the North Sea (please refer to my previous post for details). Discussing the issue with friends and
family it seems that these high profile incidents have made some people believe that travelling
by helicopter is very risky and something they wouldn't like to do. This got me thinking, is the
actual risk of helicopter travel the same as the perceived risk?
An HSE (2004) safety review of offshore helicopter use compared the fatality rates for different
types of transport over the period 1992 - 2001. The fatal accident rate for offshore helicopter
travel was 4.3 per billion passenger kilometres, which is roughly on a par with travel by car with
a fatal accident rate of 3. Rail transportation is effectively ten times safer with only 0.04 fatalities
per billion passenger kilometres, and air (fixed wing) travel even safer with a fatality rate of only
0.01. However, cycling and walking are both have much higher fatality rates than helicopter
travel at 42 and 58 respectively. Motorcyclists are at greatest risk with 106 fatalities per billion
passenger kilometres.
Over the period 1995 to 2002 the fatal and non-fatal accident rates per 100,000 flying hours in
the UK continental shelf region were 0.14 and 1.10 respectively. This is much lower than the
equivalent worldwide rates of 0.57 for fatal accidents and 1.10 for non-fatal accidents. So it can
be seen that the helicopter travel in the UK is safer than the global average.
Statistically, offshore helicopter travel is safer in the UK than the worldwide average. Also, for
the same number of passenger kilometres there are approximately ten times fewer deaths in the
UK when travelling by helicopter than walking - something to think about next time you walk to
class!
Reference:
Joseph, A. (2012). Helicopter makes emergency landing at Aberdeen Airport', Evening Express,
08 December Evening Express [Online]. Available at:
http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/Article.aspx/3042338 [Accessed: 09 December 2012].
HSE (2004). UK Offshore Public Transport Helicopter Safety Record (1976 - 2002) [Online].
Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/misc/helicoptersafety.pdf [Accessed: 28 October
2012].
Following all comments (positive and no positive approaches) in this forum I would say that the
effectiveness of safety and risk management in the oil and gas industry and the roles of the
parties involved in this process are questionable subject. This argument being based the major
accidents the industry has experienced such as: the Piper Alpha disaster 1988, Texas City
refinery explosion 2005, Gulf of Mexico oil spill 2010, and the Venezuelan refinery explosion
2012. All of them resulted in more than hundred casualties and material damages. This is an
indication that although investigations have been carried out and actions taking to improve safety
culture and new regulations have been developed, the industry still need to make a significant
improvement in safety and risk management. Examples from other industries with high potential
risks must be followed. Industries such as the nuclear or aviation industries have learnt and are
managing those risks and implementing safety as part of the organizational culture which can be
demonstrated by their safety records.
Certainly something is not going well in this process of managing risk and safety in this industry.
It would mainly due to different causes such as organizational, cultural and regulatory issues.
Some of the players are not fulfilling their roles leaving some gaps which have affected the
effective implementation of the safety and risk management process.
The gaps of this process result from people failing to apply proper designs for safety or follow
procedures or there are not policies to reinforce these processes. There are some organizations in
which the safety culture does not have strong basis or lacks of appropriate safety engineering
concepts. Other organizations have those strong bases, but either there is not commitment and
ownership or lack or reinforcement and responsibility to use them. On the other hand, there are
some organizations that have those strong policies and a safety culture which is implemented,
followed and reinforced within the organization resulting in a continuous improvement process
for recognising and assessing risks and managing safety.
Some of the main causes identified in the oil industry which have resulted in failing to
implement the risks and safety management are: lack of commitment of leaders and employees
to use safety and risk management as part of their culture, lack of implementing effective
management of change processes or sometimes a no existence of them at all, inadequate learning
and reporting systems to disseminate the learnings and improve the safety awareness, inadequate
risks assessments or paperwork cultures with not effective implementation of mitigations, lack of
enforcements of safe behaviours, safety policies and standards, lack of sense of liabilities and
weakness on regulatory control and reinforcement.
Things can be as good or as bad as we want to see them, however, most important is to think
about the ways how we can encourage the use of safety and risk management processes. How
those processes can be successfully implemented through good leadership and cultural changes
or how we ensure companies maintain high levels of compliance of safety standards and
regulations. All those initiatives can be implemented by:
Ensuring safety policies and procedures are followed and operating standards are met.
Hazard Management
Most of the work completed in the uk offshore sector are modifications to existing platforms. As such
there is a requirement to assess the impact to the existing platform by conducting continuous reviews
form concept through to final installation and commissioning.
The normal process (non fast track jobs) is to complete a concept select study, then into Front End
Engineer and Design (taking one of the concepts forward) through detail engineering and design into
fabrication and construction to final commissioning and hand over.
The normal approach is to have a Hazard management plan for the project that details how the project is
going to manage the hazards through the project life cycle by Environmental identification and design
reviews, risk assessments, and regulatory compliance demonstration.
Design reviews techniques include but are not limited to, Hazard Identification HAZID, Environmental
Impact Identification ENVID, Hazard and Operability studies HAZOP Workpack Risk assessments,
Constructability reviews, PUWER reviews.
Mitigation processes
have been put in place by the industry to avoid the severe negative
consequences from major accidents. Some companies have rigorous process
in
place to identify major hazards, and assess and manage the risks if it occurs.
It cannot be emphasized enough that there is no single better way of
managing major
risks.
Working as a project manager in the oil and gas industry is basically 95% risk management, and
rightfully so. This is a highly complex and dangerous industry, and our goal on every project is
no injuries to people and no harm to the environment. In order to accomplish this goal, risk
management has to always be on the mind of the project manager. This is especially true when
managing project on the bottom of the ocean.
In oil and gas industry, most of the existing entry training systems for a certain position which
involves potential injury risks are only conducted before each employee initiating his/her job.
But according to some statistics, a considerable portion of injuries related with lack of awareness
of mistakes during working and wrong operating habits. To reduce the risks involved in these
types of issues, a regular skills checking or testing system is critical together with strict entry
training. That means employees who take the potential risk related work, their skills or working
routines should be checked and tested against standard operation routines on a certain time base
(such as one or two years time). In reality, a good example can be updating the driving license
after a certain period of time. I believe this would help reduce the possibility of injury resulting
from wrong operation routines in oil and gas industry.
Safety of the oil and gas industry has some relationship with
the factory environment, the employees personal
qualities, and as well as the
prevention of fire and explosion safety
measures closely related to oil and gas not only
provide convenience to people's lives, but also there are certain risks, it may cause
the disease and trauma
which caused by the property, factories, product or environmental damage.
Leading to loss of
production or increase the burden.
So which can be
implemented through more perfect management system and improve the security
of the oil and
gas industry.
The process of HSE Risk Management starts right from the design stage where major accident
hazards are identified and reduced to As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) and to a
tolerable overall risk. This approach allows early identification of concerns when more effective
action may be taken and provides a clear understanding of the safety critical elements used to
control and hazard scenario. It follows principles of inherent safety and the risk reduction
hierarchy consisting of
Elimination of the hazards
Reduction by substituting with a lesser hazard
Isolation of people from the hazard
Control of the hazard through procedures
Typically, a HAZID review is conducted at an early stage in order to identify major hazards and
action appropriate control measures. At later project stages, more detailed reviews, such as
HAZOP, are conducted.
Hazards which cannot be eliminated through principles of inherent safety are managed through
application of principle of layers of defence mainly consisting of the following;
Prevention of the release (though overpressure protection and prevention of ignition sources)
Detection of the release (through Fire and Gas detection systems)
Control by inventory removal to a safe location (emergency depressuring and flaring)
Mitigation (through active and passive fire protection)
Emergency response (through provision of escape routes, muster locations and ER equipment)
The design of these defences is applied through the variety of reviews and risk studies by
different engineering disciplines.