Risk Assessment of Offshore Accidents

Running Head: RISK IN OFFSHORE
Risk Assessment of Accident
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1RISK IN OFFSHORE
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Role of risk assessment in the offshore major accident prevention.................................................2
Piper Alpha (1988)..........................................................................................................................3
Macondo Blowout (2010)................................................................................................................4
Performance of the safety barriers...................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
Reference.........................................................................................................................................6
Appendix..........................................................................................................................................8

2RISK IN OFFSHORE
Introduction
Offshore oil extraction is one of the most dangerous job in the world. Workers that reside
in the offshore oil rig drilling farms are constantly exposed to the hazardous environment of
highly inflammable materials, heavy machinery and harsh weather. These hazardous working
conditions often lead in to offshore accidents which result in to fatalities and serious injuries. The
most common accidents that occur in an offshore oil rig platform are the explosion and fires.
Welding, electrical work, and flammable materials are the common causes of fire in an offshore
oil rig. Oil rig fires are difficult to contain and it might take hours or even days to fully
extinguish the fire (Ismail et al. 2014). This study is based on the roles played by risk assessment
and accident investigation in the offshore accident prevention. It also includes a comparative
analysis of two major offshore oil rig accident.
Role of risk assessment in the offshore major accident prevention
Risk assessment provides an insight of the probable risks that may arise in future if
precautionary step are not followed. The role of risk assessment is to find out the several factors
that contribute to offshore oil rigs accidents, which are as follows:
 Flaws in the safety culture- safety norms governs the actions of an organization or a
whole industry that has inherent risk associated with it. Safety culture can be attributed to
the overall culture of an organization where safety culture is considered as a subset. This
subsets reflects the general attitude of an organization towards the risk management and
maintenance of safety. Operation that involve risk have an inherent chance of risk
occurrence and thus risk assessments are conducted. The management however remains