Alignment and communication between BP and its drilling contractors has also improved as a result of BP’s commitment to learn more about contractors’ SMS. In the second quarter of 2001, BP’s drilling and completions management issued the following directive:
“Unless required by simultaneous operations or legislation, BP Drilling & Wells teams globallyshould utilize their drilling contractor’s safety management system (SMS) during well construction/ intervention activities.”
BP’s well site leaders have several key roles in effective SMS utilisation at well sites. They must understand what the generally accepted SMS components are and have working knowledge of their purpose and intent. They must also ensure that all aspects of the SMS are working properly on their site.
Current Safety Performance – Making a Difference
Work will continue to define standards in critical success factors to ensure consistency in quality of delivery across the world. Focus areas for 2003 will be risk assessment, audit and safety support resources.
Figure 1 shows categorisation by activity of major and high-potential incidents in drilling and wells through October 2002. As can be seen, lifting operations represent over one-third of serious incidents and near misses, with dropped object-related incidents representing another quarter.
Figure 1: 2002 Drilling and Wells Major and High-potential
Incidents by Activity
A subsequent analysis of the root causes of these incidents produces data shown in Figure 2. The fact that leadership and risk management make up over one-third of the root causes reinforces efforts to address the critical success factors derived from the Global Drilling Safety Review.
The Global Drilling Safety Review was one of several initiatives undertaken in the past two years to improve safety in BP’s drilling and completions activities. To demonstrate BP’s progress, its drilling and wells safety performance through October 2002, as measured in days away from work case frequency and total recordable injury frequency, is 0.16 and 1.19, both significant improvements over 2000’s results of 0.43 and 2.25, respectively. However, with four fatalities in drilling and wells operations in 2001 from three separate incidents in Azerbaijan, Egypt and Argentina, BP and its contractors still have a significant challenge ahead to reach the goal of no harm to people.
Figure 2: 2002 Root Causes of Drilling and Well Incidents
By 1 November 2002, BP suffered three additional fatalities in its drilling and wells operations: two in the North Sea and one in the Gulf of Mexico. Progress has been made, but BP is not satisfied, and will not be, until it has the consistency in approach and competence to prevent injuries and incidents proactively
Category:
Health & Safety
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