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The risks include combustible atmospheres, machine hazards, and the need for the workforce to operate in inhospitable environments.
The industry has been through a particularly tough period since the beginning of the oil price downturn in 2014. But the multitude of risks present on oil and gas sites still needs to be managed, as companies must meet health and safety requirements on tighter budgets.
Cost cutting can inadvertently cause individuals to cut corners and, with many companies under greater financial strain, non-essential works have been delayed and in some cases critical repair schedules have been pushed back. Finding the balance between operational efficiency and maintaining high health and safety standards has become even more difficult in recent years.
Incidents on oil and gas sites can escalate quickly. Data from the Health and Safety Executive shows that 2,914 gas release incidents were reported between 2000 and 2015, 79 of which occurred while sites were in shutdown. And 111 of the releases resulted in ignitions, 10 of which were caused by hot work such as welding, burning and grinding.
The fact that hot work accounted for almost one in 10 ignitions on oil and gas sites suggests that better controls must be implemented to reduce the numbers. The potential risks associated with these incidents are significant.
Sparks and molten material created as a by-product of hot work can be dispersed up to 11m from where the task is taking place. In the oil and gas industry, the resulting risks are often significantly magnified owing to the presence of dangerous gases and other combustibles. The addition of heat to such an unstable environment creates considerable risk for those who are doing the maintenance work and others in close vicinity.
Ensuring the safety of employees is the top priority for operators, but the resources needed to address health and safety regulations are making the job increasingly difficult. How can those managing sites best safeguard employees and contractors while keeping an eye on the balance sheet? Technology could hold the key.
To ensure the safety of those doing the maintenance work, it is important to mitigate the associated risks as much as possible. Before doing necessary hot work on a ’live’ asset, a full assessment needs to be done to outline all potential outcomes.
Training your workforce so they fully understand the risks and challenges, or leaning on skilled contractors who can be deployed to manage projects that are inherently risky, can prevent serious incidents. However, on some occasions, additional action is needed to preserve the safety of the asset and those on the site.
At Safehouse Group we pioneered the development of habitats to allow maintenance work to be carried out in hazardous environments. Habitats are pressurised modular flexible enclosures with integral monitoring and control systems that have been developed to create a safe working environment. We scrutinise our certification, our supplier management and our material controls to ensure that panels used to build the habitats are exactly the way they should be before they are deployed. We have gone 10 million working hours without a major incident.
The industry has seen significant diversification in recent years with an influx of innovations such as drones and mobile operated technology coming into daily use.
In the new era of caution in the industry, new technologies can provide effective solutions to complex safety challenges, such as carrying out hot work
in safety.
Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.