Health and Safety Challenges of Ageing and Life Extension in UK Oil and Gas Industry

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HEALTH AND SAFETY REGARDING AGEING AND LIFE
EXTENSION (ALE) OF OIL AND GAS ASSETS IN THE
NORTH SEA

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Executive Summary
Oil and gas industry of the UK is one of the valuable industries of the country. It
contributes significantly to the GDP of the country and employs a huge number of workers as
well. It is a common practice in the industry to use the equipment and the installations
beyond their planned lifetime in order to maintain the integrity and the cost of operation.
However, there are some techniques which help the operators undertake extensions without
harming the lives of the workers. Nevertheless, price drops and the changes in the markets
have shown, the excessive importance given to output maximisation creating health and
safety challenges to the workers of the projects. This paper analyses the challenges of ALE in
the UK oil and gas industry from the perspective of health and safety practitioner.

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Table of contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Methods......................................................................................................................................4
Findings......................................................................................................................................4
Discussion..................................................................................................................................4
The business case for extending the life of ageing installations in North Sea.......................4
Risk management and asset integrity of the North Sea installations......................................5
Knowledge development and technological advancement.....................................................6
Changes in organisational skill and knowledge.....................................................................7
Statistics related to ALE from cases of HSE and oil and gas industry of UK.......................7
Legislations related to ALE in the North Sea.........................................................................8
Recommendations......................................................................................................................9
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
Reference..................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Oil and gas industry depends heavily on the exploration of the natural resources and it
can be enhanced with the use of installations of the machinery and plants. Studies have
shown that use of these installations has resulted in the high economic recovery of the
resources. The UK gas and oil industry operating at the offshore in North Sea also take the
assistance from the installations as well. In order to maintain integrity throughout the life of
the resources, the use of ageing and life extension of the installations, plant, and equipment is
highly preferred. The ageing and life extension (ALE) assists the operators in the industry to
make a high economic recovery without neglecting the health and safety of the workers
working on the project. However, in many previous instances such as financial crises and
price drops, the operators mainly focused on the production or the operation rather than the
safety of the installations, plants and the equipment engaged in the projects in the offshore of
North Sea. Consequently, there had been a lot of reports of health deterioration and risks of a
worker working in these projects. The aim of this paper is to critically discuss the issues of
these ALE’s from the perspective of health and safety practitioner.
Methods
This paper uses a content analysis method to analyse the risks and the health and risk
issues related to the ALE after the operators started concentrating mainly on the products
rather than the safety and risk. The necessary data and information for the analysis have been
collected from journals and articles related to the topic of the paper.
Findings
The studies have found that, although the life extensions of the installations and
equipment are important, they often compel the management to ignore the health and safety
issues of workers and the project as a whole. These have resulted in life threat to the workers
of the project and the economic loss to the operators. The main reason for the
mismanagement of the project is the violations of legal and the ethical requirements from the
side of the management.