Design Safety Lessons Learned From Major Offshore E&P Projects

Abstract

Major accident safety management in the E&P Industry has experienced several challenges (e.g. cost over-runs, loss of life) throughout our history. A typical strategy for risk management is goal setting: achieving tolerable risks and reducing risks to As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP). However, several projects have demonstrated that in their efforts to optimize safety design features, some systems have been under-specified early in the project. The process to identify these areas of potential weakness, select appropriate increased requirements and implement design changes often results in a sub-optimal solution for effort, cost, schedule or safety performance.The strategy proposed can be applied to any type of E&P installation to manage major accident hazards. It can also be applied to other goal setting design dimensions, such as environmental performance. The approach prescribes a set of specific performance standards at the concept selection stage and ensures that these requirements are implemented.The safety measures implemented to manage major accident hazards are very seldom required to function in the facility lifetime. As such project teams may not fully understand the significant role of each major accident control measure. Input from experienced Safety Engineers was refined into a minimum specification that is sufficiently clear to be used by design engineering teams, such that these few critical systems are implemented effectively. First applications of this approach have demonstrated significantly improved levels of safety, cost, schedule and effort relative to the reliance on the optimization approach during detailed design.The design safety strategy recommended by the authors has demonstrated the opportunity to:• Speed up execution • Limit safety scope changes late in the project • Reduce project engineering efforts • Minimize safety "gold-plating" • Deliver a robust design for major accident hazards • Significantly reduce and manage the major accident risks