Managing Risk in the Norwegian Offshore Industry
a self-assessment of their management’s contribution to reducing major accident risk. The issue of management and major accident risk has been a top PSA priority for the past five years. The goal has been to boost understanding of what management can do to maintain an overview of the realities and risks in their business. Executives also need to be aware of how they can check that requirements for collaboration in managing risk are clearly defined, both in-house and by other players involved. A key requirement is that managements make sure the necessary knowledge about the factors which create a major accident and their immediate causes exists in their company. It is equally important that this expertise is applied to further work on managing risk in planning and executing company operations. Risk can be managed, but that demands well-informed personnel, a comprehensive overview and a clear target. Competent leadership in this area is crucial for success in the goal of avoiding major accidents in the petroleum sector.
The Role of Management
Audits by the PSA, experience from major accidents internationally and recognised accident theories all highlight management’s key role in managing major accident risk. The decisions and initiatives taken by top executives determine the frame conditions. Therefore the PSA will continue to give this area priority during 2011. Its experience, both from audits and from investigations in the wake of serious incidents, shows that a commitment to management and major accident risk must be maintained. The player picture on the NCS has changed a lot in recent years, with the steady addition of new operators and licensees. This also makes it important to identify licensee group commitment and operator/licensee interaction. Attention will accordingly be focused on company management – from top to bottom – at both operators and licensees as well as contractors and suppliers.
Learning from Earlier Incidents
Operators in Norway have an independent duty to conduct their activities in an acceptable manner. That responsibility assumes at least a willingness and ability to learn. Drawing lessons from earlier incidents is crucial in risk-reduction work. But the question is how such experience can be applied to reduce the probability of an incident. How can tragedies such as Alexander L Kielland, Piper Alpha, Texas City, Montara and Deepwater Horizon help to reduce the risk of further accidents? Learning from accidents is a duty companies in Norway must accept. The PSA takes it for granted that senior managements and all players in petroleum operations keep constantly updated on serious incidents and accidents on the NCS and internationally. They must also make sure that the lessons are taken on board in their own organisation, that they have the attention of management and that they contribute to understanding risk. Experience and lessons from earlier incidents must be incorporated in governing documents, training, routines, procedures and compliance. They must stay with the companies through reorganisations, changes of ownership and mergers, and must be incorporated in regulations and supervisory follow-up.
Contribution of the Petroleum Safety Authority The study and prevention of undesirable incidents and major accidents occupy key places in the PSA’s supervisory activity and its contribution to learning and the transfer of experience, both in-house and by the industry. Inadequate maintenance of safety-critical equipment has proved a key contributory factor in major accidents. Extending the
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production lives of ageing installations, infrastructure and equipment calls for changes both to maintenance and to preservation of technical and operational barriers. Results from audits, research and development activities, and gathering of experience from the industry have shown that the potential for improvement exists. The PSA has observed that action for learning and improvement has not been sufficiently effective, that previously proposed measures have failed to improve control enough and that lessons are not incorporated in routines and systems. Priorities set by management are crucial for the way companies manage major accident risk. Collaboration in-house, across licensee groups, with all the players in the value chain and through employee participation at every level is crucial for success in learning from serious incidents.
Safety Cornerstones
Employee participation and tripartite co-operation between companies, unions and government are cornerstones in establishing and developing a high level of petroleum sector safety on the NCS. The requirement for employee involvement applies to all phases of the business, including project development and organisational and technological change processes. In addition come production, conversions, modifications, decommissioning and all other issues relating to the working environment. Such participation is intended to ensure utilisation of the collective knowledge and experience of employees. Co-determination and influence over a person’s own working conditions are also crucial for ensuring ownership and responsibility. The same assumptions on participation are applied when the government draws up risk-based rules and regulations largely based on functional requirements. Utilising means that the players themselves can primarily determine how the demands in the regulations are to be met.
The industry thereby has greater freedom to choose between alternative solutions than would be the case with a detailed regulatory framework. This freedom of action makes large demands on the quality of decisions and decision-making processes, including the ability to provide employees with the necessary degree of involvement before a solution is chosen. Established arenas for tripartite collaboration chaired and administered by the PSA, such as the safety and regulatory forums, bring together all the industry’s major employer and employee organisations. They are thereby involved in strategic processes and projects to improve HSE in the sector. HSE supervision and control in the Norwegian petroleum industry is based on trust, mutual respect and an understanding of the expertise and roles of each participant.
Learning the Lessons
The PSA has appointed a special project team to systematise and assess experience and investigatory findings from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in order to contribute to learning and improvement on the NCS. This team is charged with assessing the causes of the Gulf of Mexico accident in relation to Norwegian regulatory requirements, in order to identify possible areas for improvement. Information from the incident will also be assessed from the perspective of measures which might be applied to Norwegian petroleum operations. In addition to Deepwater Horizon, the team will study similar events and accidents in order to identify common denominators and causes. It will focus particularly on the 2009 Montara incident in Australia, the Aban Pearl wreck in Venezuela during 2010 and the loss of mooring chains by Ocean Vanguard off Norway in 2004. Work on the project is expected to be completed during the spring of 2011. n
EXPLORATION & PRODUCTION – VOLUME 9 ISSUE 2
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