Risk Management: Principles and Features of Safety Case in Offshore Oil and Gas Operations

This paper describes the meaning of The Safety Case in context with offshore oil and gas operations. It includes principles and features of the safety case that should be applied to all the organization and groups working in this area. Further, it contains the information about the Piper Alpha Oil and Gas Disaster which was caused by loss of life by 167 workers working on the deck of Piper Alpha. It was a major explosion of gas and oil which resulted in a big fire. It took almost 3 weeks to control the fire. Keeping in view this, this paper also includes the implications of some features of safety case which could be applied to prevent the disaster or to minimize the loss. At the end of the paper, a conclusion has been drawn on the basis of the whole discussion to provide the overview of the mentioned content.

Running head: RISK MANAGEMENT
risk management

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Executive Summary:
This paper describes the meaning of The Safety Case in context with offshore oil and gas
operations. It includes principles and features of the safety case that should be applied to all
the organization and groups working in this area. Further, it contains the information about
the Piper Alpha Oil and Gas Disaster which was caused by loss of life by 167 workers
working on the deck of Piper Alpha. It was a major explosion of gas and oil which resulted in
a big fire. It took almost 3 weeks to control the fire. Keeping in view this, this paper also
includes the implications of some features of safety case which could be applied to prevent
the disaster or to minimize the loss. At the end of the paper, a conclusion has been drawn on
the basis of the whole discussion to provide the overview of the mentioned content.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................2
Safety Case:................................................................................................................................2
Principles:...............................................................................................................................2
Features:.................................................................................................................................3
Piper Alpha Oil and Gas Platform Explosion, 1988:.................................................................5
Application of the features of The Safety Case:........................................................................5
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction:
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).
Safety Case:
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.
Principles:
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.

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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).
Features:
Main features of the safety case can be defined as follows:
1. 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.
2. 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).
3. 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).
4. 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

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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:
Management Training
Safety Training
Skill Training
Equipment training
On the job training
5. 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).
6. 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).
7. 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).
8. 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

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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).
Piper Alpha Oil and Gas Platform Explosion, 1988:
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).
Application of the features of The 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.

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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).

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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.

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