Nominations are now open for the UK Oil & Gas Industry Safety Awards 2011.
The title is self-explanatory, but what is the current state of play on the UK Continental Shelf regarding this critical aspect, given that the cross-industry Step Change initiative has been around for more than a decade and was rejuvenated last year.
Current co-chairs, Gordon Ballard of Schlumberger and John Forrest of Talisman, say Step Change remains hugely valuable as a forum for discussion and catalyst to progress, even though important targets, such as making the UKCS the safest place in upstream petroleum to work, have been missed.
“We believe the evidence points to improvement; over the whole period that Step Change has been around there has been a significant reduction in all levels of incident measured using lagging indicators,” they told Energy.
While neither was involved in the early years of Step Change following its launch in the late 1990s, they appear aware that there were significant issues to overcome, including the role of the trade unions and getting proper dialogue going between the offshore shopfloor and management, both on and offshore.
Ballard: “I think the involvement of the workforce via the safety representatives has been absolutely crucial.
“While I wasn’t involved in the earlier years, I am aware there were problems.
“Regarding the unions, we still have Jake Molloy and John Taylor very actively involved.
“They come to all the leadership team meetings and they certainly speak up for their constituents.”
So, in the wash-up for the first 13 years of Step Change, what was the biggest failure from the Ballard/Forrest perspective?
“We had set a headline vision of becoming the safest region in the world; we’ve not achieved it and that has to be disappointing.
“Nonetheless, there has been significant improvement and we think we can continue to make significant further improvements.
“We’ve identified what we need to do and we think we’re on the right track, even though we did not achieve the goal of becoming the safest place in the world by 2010.”
This begs the question as to whether the Step Change leadership went back to square one before mapping out the current five-year plan?
According to Forrest they did, and still possess a flip chart illustrated with decisions made a year ago.
“Once the decision was made that there was still work to be done, that we could get better and that Step Change would continue, thoughts turned to what could be put in place to make that happen.
“We are, for example, still looking for continued and better engagement with the workforce.
“We analysed who was being injured, how they were being injured and what the causes of those injuries were.
“We reviewed the work strands we were then active in and sought to validate whether they were or were not the right strands to continue with, and have since launched new work strands to make sure we are covering all causes of incidents.
“For example, human factors came out strongly on the causation chain for a number of accidents and we have since launched the human factors group.”
But did this analysis look at the validity of the LTI as a measure, given the debate over its use?
Ballard: “There was a lot of discussion around that. It is an industry-recognised approach to safety.”
However, there is a school of thought that believes the LTI-based approach; in the same way that everyone feels compelled to hold handrails when using stairs, or to reverse park.
Forrest insisted that an attempt is being made to probe more deeply and witness an approach to asset integrity.
“We are measuring the leaks, but by the time a leak occurs there has already been a failure, so we have developed two further key performance indicators: measuring maintenance backlog, and the number of outstanding findings by the third-party verifier – verification of non-conformance as it is called.
“Maintenance not being done can be a precursor to a grating falling out or a leak,” he said.
And they insisted that the industry really was working closely with the HSE (which sits on Step Change) to tackle the areas where improvement is needed.
They would appear to be massive, judging by the way the HSE took measures against CNR over the state of the Ninian Central production platform.
Forrest: “You have to remember that these improvements only happen when individual companies implement them.
“Our role is to try and share best practice, help set standards and help companies to raise their game. But ultimately it is down to the individual companies. Step Change is not an enforcer.”
In other words, before they walk into a Step Change session, industry bosses take their hats off at the door, gather round the table, talk through the issues and make determinations.
They then put their hats back on, go back to their respective offices and then implement only that which interests them, even though they should, in some cases, do more.
Forrest; “We have, for example, put 300 leaders from across the industry through an asset integrity workshop.
“One of the aspects of (the HSE’s) KP3 is that industry leaders weren’t well enough educated in asset integrity.
“So we developed a workshop and took that to the companies.
“It’s difficult. It’s a constant challenge, introducing further improvements.”
So, is there sufficient connect between what goes on in the boardroom and what happens out in the North Sea?
Forrest: “We recognise that engagement can be improved. We have a group working that issue through right now.
“Under the asset integrity banner there is an initiative to have senior leaders visit sites, but take technical specialists with them and collectively inspect the condition of infrastructure and plant. That’s very powerful.
“It is a blend of technical expertise and leadership authority.”
What may surprise some Energy readers is that it is only recently that subsea, aviation and maritime aspects of the industry were brought into the Step Change fold.
This means organisations like Subsea UK, BALPA, IMCA and the Marine Safety Forum are directly engaged.
It may also surprise that decommissioning is not as integrated into Step Change as some might think. So where does it fit into the framework?
“It’s not sitting there as a separate subject. It fits into asset integrity.
“It would be fair to say that, as the level of activity builds up, we will have to examine what’s happening there and see if there are particular hazard aspects that lend themselves to specific attention by Step Change,” said Ballard and Forrest.
“We’re not so blase as to think that everything we do today will necessarily cover all aspects of decommissioning, so we may have to examine the issues and take whatever steps are necessary.”
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