Pillai Sreejith

Management of Offshore Safety Performance Management (MOSP)

Management of Offshore Safety Performance

1. Introduction:

Major accidents that occurred world over, be it ‘Piper Alpha’, ‘BP Texas’ or ‘MumbaiHigh’ have given the oil & gas operators enough lessons to make it one of the safestindustries in the world. Safety Case regime and the concept of Formal SafetyAssessment (FSA) initiated after the 1988 Piper Alpha accident as recommended byLord Cullen has significantly contributed to the improved safety performance of offshoreindustry. 20 years later, the ongoing ‘Step Change in Safety’ campaign in UK is allgeared up to make UK oil & gas industry as the safest industry to work in by 2010.In the ageing UKCS (UK Continental Shelf) offshore installations, predominantly theNorth Sea platforms asset integrity management is a key concern. The KP (KeyProgramme) 3 Asset Integrity Programme [8] by UK HSE has revealed severalinteresting facts on the SCE (Safety Critical Elements) performance and some of thetypical hazardous conditions that exist in these offshore installations. This highlights thefact that the offshore industry is yet to fully learn from the major accidents and there isroom for safety improvements or rather a shift of focus from HSE to Asset IntegrityManagement (AIM).This paper is aimed at having a realistic assessment of safety performance of presentoffshore oil & gas industry in line with various efforts that are on such as UK HSE KPinitiatives, Publications such as HSG 254 [2] and UK Safety Case regulations, 2005 [1].It is also hoped that this note will trigger some discussions to optimize the Major HazardManagement (MHM) programme by the offshore operators.

2. SCE Performance and Brown Field Safety Case:

Piper Alpha disaster that killed 167 provided plenty of valuable lessons that can makethe offshore industry as one of the safest industries in the world. Although several of thePiper learning is being assessed as part of FSA studies before commissioning and thesafety case is updated every 5 years or based on various defined update triggers, thereal safety barrier or SCE performance is yet to be properly understood by the operatorsin its right perspective. The UK HSE KP 3 inspection results clearly indicate this fact.The author also had a chance to assess the safety barrier or SCE performance in a few

Pillai Sreejith

Management of Offshore Safety Performance Management (MOSP)

ageing offshore installations in South East Asia and found that the focus is still on HSEand AIM is yet to receive the attention it deserves.The risk levels on offshore installations logically depend on the SCE or safety barrierperformance for operating installations. Updating of brown field installation safety casesay, based on a major modification should logically start with the SCE performanceverification. The traffic light system used by UK HSE KP inspections is a simple andpractical way to assess the performance of SCEs. These assessment results could beused to determine the new MAH (Major Accident Hazard) probabilities thereby arriving atrealistic risk levels.

3. Performance based QRA:

The traffic light system used by NOPSA & UP HSE [3] [8] can be represented graphicallyas shown below for the better understanding of readers:Taking cues from the KP 3 inspection report and NOPSA guidelines [3] the followingguidelines could be used in order to calculate the ‘realistic’ risk levels in the brown fieldQRA.

Traffic Light Interpretation Risk Calculation Guidelines

Green

Complies with performance standard The SCEs are in good condition. The probabilityof failure or the frequency used are based onhistorical data quoted from reliable failure datasources reliable sources [CMPT [3], OREDA [4],PARLOC [5], UK HSE [4]etc;

Amber

Partially complies

(incomplete system,failures)

The SCEs are degraded. The probability offailure or the frequency is 1.5 times higher thanthe values used for green light.

Red

Non compliant

(major failures or key elements missing)

The SCEs are completely degraded. Theprobability of failure or the frequency is doublethe values used for green light.

Pillai Sreejith

Management of Offshore Safety Performance Management (MOSP)

The changed (mostly increased) risk levels from the base case risk level could be usedto highlight the point that unless the SCEs or barriers performance is ensured, the riskscan go beyond the tolerable ALARP region. The author has successfully used this pointto communicate the message to the offshore personnel that

‘unless safety systems are maintained, MAH can happen and the risk levels may not be in the ALARP region anymore’

.The various risk levels can be represented on an ALARP triangle as shown below in thebrown field QRA report. This diagram clearly shows that the individual risk afterassessing the SCE Performance is more than the base case risk highlighting the need tostrengthen the AIM process.

4. Safety Systems / Barriers / Safety Critical Elements:

The author feels that if the Bow Tie Assessment (BTA) technique [10] can be betterutilized in all the FSA studies that are required as part of Offshore Safety Case to clearlydemonstrate that all major hazards are assessed and managed to ALARP level.Logically, for a brown field installation, if all SCEs or barriers are performing satisfactorily(Green traffic light), then the risks of the installation can be considered to be in theALARP tolerable region.If bow ties are constructed for each of the MAEs (Major Accident Events) or MAH (MajorAccident Hazards) based on the HAZID (Hazard Identification), these bow ties can bemodified for each of the FSA (Formal Safety Assessment) studies to demonstrate thatthe assessments are in compliance in UK SCR (Safety Case Regulations), 2005. This