North Sea safety organisation Step Change in Safety is to launch a new best-practice guide for the oil and gas industry on how to prevent costly – and potentially fatal – blow-outs.
The Hydrocarbon Release Prevention Guidance, which will be freely available to the global oil and gas industry, will be launched alongside the Health and Safety Executive’s Loss of Containment Inspection guidance in Aberdeen next week.
There will also be presentations by the Step Change Asset Integrity Steering Group joint chairment Mike Backus and Craig Wiggins as well as HCR working group members Alan Blacklaw and Damon Bowler.
Step Change in Safety is a tripartite member-led organisation which has more than 130 oil and gas employers, trades unions and regulator members
Its new guide consolidates and builds on legacy guidance and originated when members from the HCR workgroup – made up of representatives from operators, service providers and HSE – carried out peer to peer assessments, across 12 operators and their installations. The insights proved invaluable as they identified issues the industry currently faces and the various approaches taken to resolve them.
Mike Backus, Vice President of Operations UK at Nexen-CNOOC, said: “Prevention of hydrocarbon releases in our industry is one of the most important things we can focus on. Sharing our experiences, across the industry, is one way we can all do a better job in blow-out prevention.
“The best practice guidelines are a culmination of effort from dedicated industry professionals who spent time examining practices across a number of operators. They were able to determine best practices as well as some key learnings, and have prepared this document to guide the industry in safer operations.”
Craig Wiggins, Senior Vice-President for Production Asset Services at Aker Solutions, added: “This document demonstrates much of the good work that already exists in our sector and is aligned with the direction that the HSE has been driving for a number of years.”
2 Mar 2018
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