Key Risk Management Features Of Safety Case Regime For Reducing Major Accidents

Safety Case

Prepare a short paper, to explain the key risk management features of the safety case regime in reducing the risk of major accidents and describe how its application may have prevented the Piper Alpha Oil & Gas Platform Explosion in 1988.

Implementation of effective and efficient chemical substitution policies and management functions at the workplace can result in benefits related to health and safety of workers. Risk management is a process which involves identification, assessment and controls the threats to an organization’s earnings and capital. These risks and threats can be generated from a variety of sources including legal liabilities, financial uncertainty, accidents, strategic management errors and natural disasters. Risks related employee’s safety and security is the major issue to be concerned about the organizations working in the chemical industry (Authority, 2018). This paper describes the key risk management features for the safety and security of employees from major and sudden accidents. Since disasters can be occurred due to human intervention and due to natural causes. In case of human intervention, disasters can be controlled up to some extent but in case of natural disaster, only efforts can be made to minimize the loss. The paper also includes applications of some identified features that could be used to prevent the loss, which had to bear because of Piper Alpha Oil & Gas Platform Explosion (Center, 2013).

A safety case can be explained as a document produced by the provider of a facility which includes identifying the risks and hazards, describes the process of controlling risks and safety management features to ensure the effectiveness and consistency of controlling measures.

Some principles of the safety case are as follows:

1. The first principle states that it is required to manage the risk by the person who created it. It is the job of the operator to identify their processes, systems, and procedures to evaluate and identify risks and then applying an appropriate controlling system. Because the operator is the one who has depth knowledge about the installation under his control.
2. The second principle states that safety case is required to identify the managerial and technical criticalities of the facility(Shallcross, 2013).
3. This principle states that for the management of the safety aspects, appropriate performance standards should be used in a proper way.
4. This principle says that workforce is required to be involved in the explanation of safety case so they can know the critical situations and their impacts so that they can work in order to avoid that situation.
5. A safety case can be accepted as appropriate when it satisfies the arrangements of documents in order to show the reduction of risks as much as possible(Authority, 2018).

Main features of the safety case can be defined as follows:

Availability of extra pipelines and systems:

The safety cases involve that there should be the availability of extra machines, and system that is required in case of the ineffectiveness of working pipelines and systems.

Regular maintenance of all machines:

Maintenance is very important to save the plant and its operators. There are specific and clear guidelines given in The Safety case Regime which can be summarized as follows:

• Routine maintenance of the machines of the plant.
• Maintaining the accurate records of all maintenance.
• Critical safety maintenance tasks
• Observing daily maintenance completion targets
• Permit for work procedures and requirements.
• Availability and maintenance of specialized safety systems in case of critical conditions(S.Silvestre, et al., 2017).
• Automatic initiation of fire firing system:

An offshore operating ship and crew should always maintain firefighting system are working and ready to use condition. Their firefighting system should also have the feature to take automatic initiate in case of occurring fire and related accidents (Proadribb, 2014).

Training:

Training is the key focusing area and needs to be addressed carefully in the safety case. Major accidents, loss, and incidents have shown a big failure in managing this important area of for the safety and security of workers. Training includes educating the workers and employees about both direct and indirect safety-related activities. Direct safety activities involve to train about the use of safety equipment, to put out the fire with the use of fire extinguisher etc. On the other hand, indirect activities include skill and task training which is required for the complete and overall safety of a system (Soloman, 2015). Some main types of training include:

Principles

Management Training

Safety Training

Skill Training

Equipment training

On the job training

Immediate action:

The safety cases also state that in case of and intimation of risk or accident, the operations manager and other related managerial persons should immediately take an action before it converts into a big disaster. Disasters can be prevented and their loss can also be minimized if these are treated well at initial stages (Swuste, et al., 2018).

Availability of sufficient rescue options:

The safety case also includes that a crew and group working for offshore operations should have working and sufficient rescue options such as lifesaving jackets, number of fire extinguisher, emergency exit gates and windows so that workers can save their life using such safety options (A.Sujan, et al., 2016).

Emergency Plan:

The management of the offshore operations group should always have an effective plan to deal with sudden accidents and risks. Because it is not possible to make a plan at the time of an accident. Along with the availability of plan, all the employees are required to have knowledge about it and the resources should also be available to execute the proposed plan (Hopkins, 2015).

Permit to work:

In all offshore installations, a “Permit to Work” is raised before carrying out any work. This includes the location and identity of the component along with the electrical and mechanical isolations in place including valves electric motors, valves shut etc. It is raised by the standing instructions manager and also signed by him along with the signature of Oil Installation Manager (OIM) and electricians /fitters working on that component. It is a normal and extensive full proof document of safety which is kept in the control room. The PTW is generally signed off and file for upcoming future references after the back of component in the service (Khan & Hashemi, 2014).

On 6 July 1988, a series of fire and explosions caused a disaster on the platform of Piper Alpha Oil and Gas Production in the North Sea. It took off the lives of One hundred and sixty-five persons out of two hundred and twenty-six persons along with two crew members of the rescue craft. The number of people died was the highest in comparison to any other offshore accidents and operations in the history (McGinty, 2010).

The main reason for the above-mentioned disaster was considered as the maintenance issue of pipelines and machines over the deck. If the maintenance of the pipeline A was carried out on time and there was the availability of emergency plan in the situation of out of order of both the pipelines, the disaster level could be minimized and lives of 167 persons could be saved (Allen, 2011).

Key Features of Safety Case

The above-mentioned features of safety case regime could be used in a below-described manner to prevent the disaster:

1. As mentioned above, if extra pipelines were available at that time then the working pressure could be shifted to them for some time and during that time, pipeline A could be brought out back from maintenance.
2. Regular maintenance of pipeline was the key issue in this explosion. If there were regular maintenance of both pipelines than it is possible that the issue might not be generated in pipeline B. The availability could also be possible of Pipeline A is there were proper management of maintenance practices.
3. There was lack of fire firing systems and facilities. The fire extinguishers were not available in the sufficient number to deal with such a big explosion. Also, the available fire firing system was not in good condition to work. Here the problem of maintenance can also be considered. IF the fire firing systems were available in more number and in good condition than lives of some more persons could be saved by controlling the fire at initial stages.
4. The workers on the deck were not trained to deal the situation of the explosion. There is a need of normal as well as special training to the persons working in offshore operations. Piper Alpha was related to the gas and oil production and thus it required a lot to train its workers as the chances are more of death in this type of work.
5. There was lack of communication among the workers as they were known about the shift timings of the person who was concerned with the working and changing of pipeline pressure. Also when the gas started to explore the member were not aware of this fact and thus they were also not considered for not using the piece of generating fire. If communication among the various departments were well structured and all the workers were informed at the initial stage of explosion then measures could be taken and loss of lives can be saved form the cooperation of all departments(Moura, et al., 2017).
6. The safety case implies that gas compression units should never be installed next to working area and the control room. In the case of Piper Alpha, compression units were located next to the control room.
7. Piper Alpha explosion could be saved of Permit to Work document was used properly. Because on the day of the explosion, Pipeline A was not in working because of maintenance but PTW was live in the control room. The engineer checked the PTW box and did not find any condensate for pump A. PTW was not used in the proper manner and it was the key reason because of which such a big explosion took place(Shears & Cole, 2013).
8. The safety cases also include that management should also have a backup plan that can be used at the time of failure of the main plan. Also, there should be an immediate plan to follow. If Piper Alpha had any backup and immediate action plan then it could be used at the time of accident and loss of explosion could be saved(Paterson, 2017).
9. Engineers should have considered the danger alarm and took immediate action accordingly. If engineers of the control room had considered the alarm as a sign of danger then the second explosion could be controlled by controlling the leakage of gases. Also, there were no sufficient rescue operations available on the deck. There was no life safety jackets and no lifeboats on the deck. Availability of life jackets and boats could save the life of those 167 persons who lost their lives without any mistake and intimation(Attwood, 2017).

Conclusion:

On the basis of above study, it can be concluded that most of the safety cases are produced with some specific rules and regulations related to hazards and threats to the workers. The rules and regulations are made for some purpose and their not compliance can lead to major accidents and hazards. The safety case describes a lot of features and principles which should be followed by all the companies and offshore operations working in the presence of gases, chemicals, and fire. In the Piper Alpha Oil and Gas Explosion case, if the safety measurement were used properly and proper initiative might have taken immediately, then lives of the persons could have been saved. It is also possible that if the permit to work method or approach and better communication systems were used among the engineers and operational level workers, then the initiative measures could be taken immediately after the first explosion and the plant could be saved from the second explosion. For keeping to workers life safe and free from any type of hazards, the operations management should follow all the guidelines and features of the related safety case.

References

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[Accessed 18 May 2018].

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