WATCHING THE WORLD OFFSHORE SAFETY

Preoccupation of North Sea operators with safety is apparent in this summer's hectic annual maintenance season, now in full swing.

In addition to normal housekeeping tasks, operators are giving top priority to fitting and repositioning of emergency shutdown valves (ESVs) on all platform risers and are installing the first of a new generation of subsea isolation valves.

Onshore, away from the immediate requirement to meet the yearend deadline for completing the ESV work, operators also are looking at ways to make safety an integral part of North Sea life from spudding the first wildcat on a structure to operating the following development and production program through its commercial span.

OCCIDENTAL GROUP PROGRAM

The Occidental group, owner of the ill-fated Piper Alpha platform, is funding a formal professorship in safety engineering and head of a safety department within the engineering faculty at Aberdeen University.

The 400,000 ($712,000) program will cover the first 4 years of the professorship, during which time the first batch of engineering students will have graduated. These safety aware graduates will then start to permeate the ranks of oil and engineering companies.

Prof. Allan Barr, head of Aberdeen's engineering faculty, said introduction of safety engineering as a university discipline will make a threefold contribution to industry.

Direct effect will be the provision of a focus for expertise, research, and specialist courses in this field. It also will provide independent, objective assessment of reliability, risk, and accident investigation. And there will be an outflow of engineering graduates whose education will include fundamental aspects of safety engineering.

While operators fund programs designed to improve North Sea safety, they still have to struggle with the human element in the daily offshore business.

Ensuring that operating procedures, many of which have been reviewed and revised since the Piper Alpha explosion and fire, are properly observed remains one of the most difficult aspects of offshore management.

The emphasis on safe operations is everywhere, but there are still regular examples of flagrant breaches of procedures, apparently by personnel who believe cutting corners in the pursuit of high production levels is still acceptable to employers.

PRACTICES AT ISSUE

Such actions in some cases have led to disciplinary action.

However, union activists claim there are unsafe practices that are encouraged by operators and allege that personnel reporting these breaches soon discover they are on an unofficial blacklist that prevents them from working offshore.

Operators reject any claim that contractors are under short term pressure to cut costs and corners. Long term contracts are becoming common among bigger operators, and contractors with a poor safety record and little inclination to improve are finding it more difficult to get work.

But as one safety officer said recently, memories of Piper Alpha seem remarkably short, judging from some of the unsolicited actions of offshore workers.