Offshore petroleum industry

Vinnem, J.E. (2010) Analysis of root causes of major hazard precursors in the Norwegian offshore petroleum industry , Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 95 (11) 1142-1153. 

The main reason for the limited information about safely indicators is that BOEMRE has limited access to information, and the BOEMRE-led U.S. regime and U.S. law do not require annual updates of the offshore petroleum industry s risk level (Skogdalen et al. 2010). Traditionally the industry has been required to report LTI and oil releases. Lately the industry has also been required to report gas emissions. ... 

The risk level of the Norwegian offshore petroleum industry has been analysed and presented on an annual basis by PSA. The scope of this risk level work covers all aspects of health, environment and safety (HES) within the authority s jurisdiction (Vinnem 2010). The first report was presented early in 2001, based on data for the 1996-2000 period. The methods used to collect data and analyse the risks were developed through the Risk Level Project (RNNP). Since then, annual updates have been performed. Also, since its beginning, RNNP as a tool has been undergoing development in cooperation with different stakeholders (Petroleum Safety Authority Norway 2009b). 

Aven, T. Vinnem, J.E. (2007) Risk Management-With Applications from the Offshore Petroleum Industry. Springer Verlag. London. 

The offshore petroleum industry has evolved into a distinct branch of the oil and gas industry over the past few decades. The history of the offshore industry, from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century through to the mid-1960s, has been documented by F. Jay Schempf in the book. Pioneering Offshore The Early Years, and features in-depth interviews with over 125 important contributors to its advancement and development into a distinct technology (Schempf, 2007). 

Offshore petroleum industry Risk management, for example, safety, environmental, and economics, plus cost reduction of the inspection costs... 

Supply operations are conducted on large scale even in adverse weather conditions to provide wide variety of cargos necessary for uninterrupted operation of offshore installations. To ensure safety of supply operations, offshore industry developed wide range of safety rules specific for this kind of operations. These rules are not replacement for international regulations which are fully applicahle for offshore petroleum industry. 

Foam Control. Whereas some siUcones are known to be foam promoters, Dow Corning FS-1265 Fluid is a Hquid fluorosiUcone with effective antifoam properties. Petroleum industry appHcation of fluids and dispersions in gas—oil separators on offshore drilling platforms has been successful. Their use peaked in the early 1980s, coinciding with constrained cmde oil capacity and production. Diesel fuels are an excellent solvent for dimethyl silicones and render them ineffective as an antifoam. A new antifoam which does not require the use of added siUca is formulated from a fluorosiUcone copolymer. It has shown promise to antifoam (8) diesel fuel (see Defoamers). 

The Hydrocarbon Processing Industry (HPI), has traditionally been reluctant to invest capital where an immediate direct return on the investment to the company is not obvious, as would any business enterprise. Additionally financial fire losses in the petroleum and related industries were relatively small up to about the 1950 s. This was due to the small size of facilities and the relatively low value of oil and gas to the volume of production. Until 1950, a fire or explosion loss of more than 5 million U. S. Dollars had not occurred in the refining industry in the USA. Also in this period, the capital intensive offshore oil exploration and production industry were only just beginning. The use of gas was also limited early in the century. Consequentially its value was also very low. Typically production gas was immediately flared or the well was capped and considered as an uneconomical reservoir. Since gas development was limited, large vapor explosions were relatively rare and catastrophic destruction from petroleum incidents was essentially unheard of. The outlays for petroleum industry safety features were traditionally the absolute minimum required by governmental regulations. The development of loss prevention philosophies and practices were therefore not effectively developed within the industry. 

Smoke is a by-product of most fires caused by the incomplete oxidation of the fuel supply during the chemical process of combustion. It accounts for a large majority of fatalities of from fire incidents at both onshore and offshore petroleum facilities. In the Piper Alpha incident of 1988, probably the worst petroleum industry offshore life loss incident, the majority of deaths were not from bums, drowning or explosion impacts but from smoke and gas inhalation. The report on the incident concluded that, of the bodies recovered from the incident, 83% were as a result of inhalation of smoke and gas. Most of these victims were assembled in the accommodation awaiting evacuation directions or as they may have thought - a possible rescue. 

Continuous-flow compressors are machines where the flow is continuous, unlike positive-displacement machines where the flow is fluctuating. Continuous-flow compressors are also classified as turbomachines. These types of machines are widely used in the chemical and petroleum industry for many services. They are also used extensively in many other industries such as the iron and steel industry, pipeline boosters, and on offshore platforms for reinjection compressors. Continuous-flow machines are usually much smaller in size and produce much less vibration than their counterpart, positive-displacement units. 

Chen, X.-Z., 2005. A portable polymer injection skid used in an offshore platform—application case. In Yan, C.-Z., Li, Y. (Eds.), Tertiary Oil Recovery Symposium. Petroleum Industry Press, pp. 58-68. 

Specific risk factors relevant also in the petroleum industry are covered by separate pieces of legislation, such as the 1929 Electrical Supervision AcE and the 2002 Fire and Explosion Protection AcV° Also, because health issues may well have an impact on safety level, the specific health legislation is relevant to offshore safety. A total of six health-related acts thus form part of the basis for the detailed safety regulations (see further in Subsection 5.4.1). ... 

In Australia, there is a specific requirement (see Of hore Petroleum Greenhouse Gas Storage Act section 695) for a review of the effectiveness of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority every three years. In practice, this judgement is made subjectively based on a comparison of NOPSA s practices with those of other regulators internationally and the views of key stakeholders, including industry. 

Responsible for safety, emergency preparedness and the working environment in the petroleum industry. The regulatory regime applies to offshore installations and exploration, production and exploitation operations, as well as to their associated onshore processing facilities and refineries. 

All the same, the petroleum industry represented, as mentioned earlier, something new and challenging for Norway. Its operations took place offshore, and the sector gradually became technologically demanding and had a high risk potential. 

Skogdalen, J. E., Utne, LB. and Vinnem, J.E. (2011). Developing safety indicators for preventing offshore oil and gas deepwater drilling blowouts. Safety Science 49 1187-1199. Tharaldsen (2011) In Safety We Tmst Safety, Risk and Trust in the North Sea Petroleum Industry. PhD thesis. University of Stavanger. 

Dahle, T.G. (1994) The Norwegian approach to safety in offshore petroleum activity , Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 7 (4) 379-381. 

During the late 1990s, a polarisation developed between the trade unions and the petroleum industry. The trade unions claimed that safety offshore was deteriorating, whereas the industry elaimed that safety was better than ever. We examine two expressions of these positions. 

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