The offshore union RMT welcomes the announcement of a North Sea oil summit by Aberdeen City Council.
As a representative industry body there are a number of areas we feel need to be addressed in the current climate:
People – RMT has major concerns about the impact of cost-cutting across the sector.
We are hearing from workers with several different operators that terms and conditions are to be slashed in an effort to reduce costs.
The most worrying element of these cuts are the proposed changes to working patterns which could see workers currently working two-weeks on, three-weeks off, being altered to either two-on, two-off or three-on, three-off.
These changes if pushed through will see significant redundancies and a loss of experience and ‘corporate memory’.
For those remaining, the ‘safety culture’ we have developed over the last five years plus will be irreparably damaged as working hours increase significantly whilst income stands still.
Talk of low morale is already widespread, which in a major hazard industry should be cause for concern.
Hardware – The cost-cutting agenda will see major redevelopment/refurbishment projects delayed indefinitely, as investment dries up. For some installations this will be of serious concern.
The Health & Safety Executive key programmes three & four, ‘asset integrity’ and ‘ageing infrastructure’ respectively, are wholly reliant on investment for redevelopment/refurbishment, without it many installations will be run inefficiently and moreover with greater risks and hazards.
History demonstrates that during each and every downturn which the sector has suffered we have come close to disaster and the fatality rate has increased.
The pressure to reduce costs, but maintain production, creates scenarios like the Shell Brent Bravo incident of 2003; insufficient numbers of motivated people avoiding the risk of losing production by doing little or no intrusive maintenance on safety critical equipment so leaving us a spark away from another Piper Alpha disaster.
Regulating and auditing – The HSE will be stretched to maximum capacity trying to deal with the introduction of the new EU Offshore Safety Directive which will require every installation to submit their respective safety cases.
The impacts of cost-cutting may well elude the inspectorate as they deal with the ‘paperwork’ of safety case assessment and they are already under resourced.
The Offshore Elected Safety Representatives (ESR’s) are enthusiastic, committed amateurs and undoubtedly are making a difference.
However, the ESR’s are primarily workers and are subject to the same pressures and constraints as their peers, therefore when faced with the same fears and threats their approach to auditing and inspecting will inevitably be impacted.
Sustainability – The frequently referred to ‘Wood Review’ sets out the ‘master plan’ for maximising recovery from the UK sector and sustaining production.
However, the ‘collaboration’ required to enable this is reliant on the infrastructure being fit for purpose.
New fields are smaller and more difficult to access so a means to transport the product to shore is critical to sustainability, which in turn means the existing infrastructure has to be maintained to the highest standard.
The ‘Wood Review’ was drafted and based its projections on an oil price in excess of $100 a barrel. For all of the reasons set out above, that sustainability must now be at risk.
Decommissioning – if none of the issues above are addressed by innovative tax incentives during this difficult period, then we face the loss of the infrastructure and with it the ability to exploit remaining reserves.
On top of this, the UK tax payer faces a massive bill – some estimate as much as £30 billion – for decommissioning and meeting the EU commitments on clean up.
We need Westminster to adopt a crisis management approach and ensure sustained production, maintained infrastructure, retention of skills, and a robustly regulated regime.
Jake Malloy is a regional organiser for the RMT Union
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