New rules on safety in the British North Sea could cost the industry as much as $2.8 billion during the next 15 years.
Draft regulations and guidance, published by Britain's Health and Safety Commission, will require operators and owners to submit a safety case for each offshore installation by a date in 1993. And the case must have been accepted by a date in 1995 (OGJ, Mar. 2, Newsletter).
The safety case is a document first submitted at the concept design stage for a fixed installation or on entering U.K. waters for a mobile rig or heavy lift barge. The case is to updated throughout the operational life of the installation, finally becoming a case for safe abandonment.
Estimates of spending that will be required under the new safety rules include the comparatively minor cost of preparing safety cases and the much larger budget for changes on offshore installations to meet the criteria laid down in the safety case.
Much of this outlay will focus on ensuring that all installations have a temporary, safe refuge for personnel in the event of a fire, explosion, or gas leak. Operators will be required to make a risk assessment for the temporary safe refuges in demonstrating the standard of protection.
WHAT'S TO HE REQUIRED
In submitting a safety case, an offshore operator will have to show that all major hazards have been identified and measures taken to reduce the associated risks to the lowest level reasonably practical. They will also have to show an effective safety management system.
Under the regulations for new fixed installations, operators must allow the health and safety authorities 3 months to consider the concept design. The operational safety case must be submitted 6 months before operations begin.
There will be a separate operations safety case, submitted 28 days before drilling begins, to demonstrate the safe design of each well and safe operating procedures.
For mobile installations, the owner must submit an operational safety case 6 months before entering U.k. waters and will also have to submit a well by well safety case 28 days before the start of drilling.
If a mobile vessel operates in conjunction with a fixed platform, a combined operations safety case must be submitted 6 weeks before work starts.
During the next few years, safety case rules be followed by reform of existing law on North Sea safety and its replacement with a series of goal setting rules, establishing safety standards as objectives for all installations.
The draft offshore safety case rules appear in a consultative document. U.K. operators will have a chance to comment on the proposals before the commission asks the government to give them force of law.
Final rules are expected to be published in the fall, ready to go into force in spring 1993.
Publication of detailed proposals for offshore safety cases is a direct result of recommendations of the Cullen inquiry into an explosion and fire on the Piper Alpha platform in July 1988 with the loss of 167 lives.
Copyright 1992 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
