Archive for the ‘conferences’ Category
Ministerial Forum on Well Capping and Containment
Posted in conferences, drilling, oil, tagged Department of the Interior, offshore drilling, Salazar, well containment on March 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Baker Institute Offshore Energy Forum to be Webcast Live on 11 February
Posted in conferences, tagged accidents, Baker Institute, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore oil, Rice University, safety on February 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Pictures from the Vancouver Conference are now posted!
Posted in conferences, tagged IRF, offshore oil, safety, vancouver on January 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »
International Regulators’ Offshore Safety Conference
Posted in conferences, tagged IRF, offshore oil, safety, vancouver on November 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Vancouver Findings and Recommendations
Posted in conferences, tagged IRF, offshore oil, safety, vancouver on November 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The following are the consensus findings and recommendations of the 200 operations, safety, and regulatory specialists who participated in the International Regulators’ Offshore Safety Conference (18-20 October, Vancouver):
- Regulatory regimes function most effectively when a single entity has broad safety and pollution prevention responsibility. Gaps, overlap, and confusion are not in the interest of safety or regulatory efficiency.
- The regulator’s core responsibilities and objectives must be clearly identified. Managers must minimize distractions so that regulatory personnel can focus on these objectives.
- Safety management and regulatory priorities should be identified through a comprehensive risk assessment program. Training and competency development programs should be updated to reflect the new risk information. Contracting strategies should be reviewed to assess their safety and risk implications.
- Government and industry should promote an improvement mentality, not a compliance mentality. Continuous communication among regulators, operators, contractors, workers, industry associations and public interest groups is essential for continuous improvement.
- Operators and contractors must manage their companies to achieve safety objectives and must continually assess the effectiveness of their management programs. Regulators should challenge industry to resolve potential safety problems rather than seek to resolve the problems for them.
- Regulators should serve as catalysts for learning by distributing information, hosting workshops, participating in research, and identifying gaps in standards and best practices. Wherever possible, the best standards should be identified and applied internationally.
- Accident investigations should be conducted independently and findings should be promptly and broadly distributed. Industry or government should maintain comprehensive and verified incident data bases. Offshore companies should regularly discuss the causes and implications of past accidents with their employees.
- Industry and government cannot rely solely on incident data to identify risks. New indicators must be explored and assessed, particularly for major hazards and safety culture. Worker input is also essential.
- Peer-based audit programs should be considered for both regulators and operators.
- Industry and regulators should make better use of technology for real time monitoring of safety parameters.
- Sustaining outstanding safety performance is critical to the reputation of industry and government. All personnel should be trained to be safety leaders and should be empowered to stop work without blame.
- Industry and government should Investigate other actions and programs that might help promote, sustain, and monitor a culture of safety achievement.
This is very good, fundamental guidance for all governments and companies.
Hydrocarbon Releases
Posted in accidents, conferences, IRF, tagged Australia, hydrocarbon releases, macondo, Netherlands, Norway, offshore oil, performance measurement, UK on November 2, 2010| 1 Comment »
The above slide is excerpted from Torleif Husebo’s presentation at the Vancouver conference. Since Piper Alpha in 1988, offshore safety leaders have been gathering and assessing hydrocarbon release data. Norway, the UK, Australia, the Netherlands and other nations track these data because they are an important indicator of fire and explosion risks. The IRF reports these data as part of their performance measurement project.
Obviously, when hydrocarbons are unintentionally released at an offshore facility you have the potential for a very dangerous situation. However, because of objections voiced when the MMS updated incident reporting requirements 5 years ago, the US government does not collect the detailed information needed to track the size and cause of these releases. The US is thus unable to monitor trends and benchmark against other nations around the world.
Offshore companies have done well in responding to the drilling issues raised following the blowout. However, the post-Macondo offshore industry needs to provide broad safety leadership. A commitment to collecting performance data and assessing risk trends at OCS oil and gas facilities is absolutely essential. A good place to start would be to initiate a cooperative hydrocarbon release data gathering program.
More on Safety Culture
Posted in accidents, conferences, tagged accidents, Deepwater Horizon, Gonzales, Kie, Mark Fleming, offshore oil, Reason, safety, safety culture, Sawicka, unrocked boat, vancouver on October 29, 2010| 2 Comments »
This slide presented by Dr. Mark Fleming during his excellent presentation in Vancouver piqued my interest, so I looked for a bit more information. I found this interesting observation in a paper by Gonzales and Sawicka:
The role of risk perception is particularly interesting. First, performance in both safety and security settings is well characterized by the “unrocked boat” metaphor: Organizations become accustomed to their apparently safe state, thus misperceiving risk and allowing themselves to drift into regions of greater vulnerability, until (near) accidents temporarily induce greater risk awareness. The resulting pattern is oscillatory, with varying amplitude and typically leading to disaster.
The above quote seems to describe the situation on the Deepwater Horizon. Perhaps there was a sense of invulnerability among some employees (including managers) and finishing the job took precedence over safety. As Mark Fleming remarked in his presentation, offshore workers know their employer is in business to produce barrels of oil, not barrels of safety. Concerns about production (or in this case timely suspension of the well) can easily supersede concerns about safety.
The same cultural drivers-time pressure, cost-cutting, indifference to hazards and the blinkered pursuit of commercial advantage-act to propel different people down the same error-provoking pathways to suffer the same kinds of accidents. Each organization gets the repeated accidents it deserves. Unless these drivers are changed and the local traps removed, the same accidents will continue to happen.
Reason goes on to recommend a data collection program that is currently absent, at least on an industry-wide basis:
In the absence of sufficient accidents to steer by, the only way to sustain a level of intelligent and respectful wariness is by creating a safety information system that collects, analyzes, and disseminates the knowledge gained from accidents, near misses, and other sources of ‘free lessons.’
I would suggest that another way to sustain wariness is to present information on past accidents and why they can happen again. How many industry employees know what happened at Santa Barbara, Bay Marchand, Main Pass 41, Ixtoc, the Alexander Kielland, Ocean Ranger, Brent B, South Pass 60 B, and even Piper Alpha?
Finally, Reason reaches this critically important and completely relevant conclusion (keep in mind that this paper is 12-years old):
It need not be necessary to suffer a corporate near-death experience before acknowledging the threat of operational dangers-though that does appear to have been the norm in the past. If we understand what comprises an informed culture, we can socially engineer its development. Achieving a safe culture does not have to be akin to a religious conversion-as it is sometimes represented. There is nothing mystical about it. It can be acquired through the day-to-day application of practical down-to-earth measures. Nor is safety culture a single entity. It is made up of a number of interacting elements, or ways of doing, thinking and managing, that have enhanced resistance to operational dangers as their natural by-product.
Vancouver Presentations are Posted!
Posted in conferences, tagged IRF, offshore oil, safety, safety culture, vancouver on October 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Good for Cairn Energy! Good for Greenland!
Posted in conferences, drilling, Norway, tagged Cairn Energy, drilling, Greenland, offshore oil, Phil Tracy, safety on October 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Upstream was in attendance at today’s Arctic Oil & Gas Conference in Oslo and posted an interesting report. At the conference, Cairn Energy’s Engineering and Operations Director Phil Tracy wisely avoided the “can’t happen here, can’t happen again, can’t happen to me” traps. Instead, he correctly noted that:
An uninformed public are looking for guarantees we cannot give.
Kudos to Mr. Tracy. We are not politicians, and must be open and honest with the public. Yes, a disaster can happen again, but we will do everything possible to prevent it. While the professional opposition and their political leadership will never be satisfied, the public at large appreciates candid and honest responses.
I was personally required to give a point by point by point submission (covering HSE) to the Greenlandic authorities. Phil Tracy
I have to give high marks to Greenland. They resisted the cry to prohibit drilling, but challenged the operator and insisted on a top-notch operation. Well done!
Cairn operation offshore Greenland. Greenpeace provides moral support.
Mark Fleming on Safety Culture
Posted in conferences, tagged accidents, Mark Fleming, safety, safety culture, vancouver on October 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Peoples attitudes and opinions have been formed over decades of life and cannot be changed by having a few meetings or giving a few lectures. Mao Tse Tung (from Mark Fleming’s presentation linked below)
Sometimes presentations don’t fulfill the lofty expectations of the audience, particularly when the titles are catchy. That definitely was not the case with Dr. Mark Fleming’s outstanding presentation at the Vancouver conference. Mark’s presentation entitled Know where you are going rather than where you have been! A Leaders’ guide to continuous safety performance measurement effectively drove home the safety culture message. I strongly suggest that you take a close look at the presentation (not yet posted, but I’ll provide a link as soon as it is).
In the meantime, you can look at this excellent paper that Mark prepared for Petroleum Research Atlantic Canada and a presentation he made at the Centre for Occupational Health/Safety. Good, thought provoking stuff for you safety gurus!
from Dr. Fleming's presentation linked above
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 