Fire on an oil and gas facility is no joking matter especially if located offshore.
For one thing these accident types choose the most unexpected times to occur. Typically in the dead of the night, pitch black surroundings, while most persons onboard are in slumberland dreaming of a beautiful and magical tomorrow. So the accident arrives, unannounced, and proceeds to wreak havoc on all, any and every, leaving devastation in its wake. Survivors, if there are any, are left aghast, wondering what went wrong.
The aftermath of any major accident event (MAE) on an oil and gas facility is sure to throw up an endless reel of questions ranging from what was going on at the time, who was doing what, where, how, when and for how long? Was the correct procedure adopted? Was the job hazard thoroughly evaluated? Was the supervisor competent to oversee such jobs? What about safety precautions for the job? Was there a Permit-To-Work clearing the work to go ahead? What about Emergency Response Plan? Was this effective, fully deployed? Did people do what they were supposed to do? ?????
But ofcourse there's no end to it. In the end we promise ourselves improvements against future recurrence and all that. Give it time though, soon enough another one occurs only this time more devastating. Would we ever learn? Only time will tell. Funny we seek to nail down the cause(s), fingers are pointed at the duty supervisor, manager, foreman, watchman or even the duty cook of the day.
Senior Managers and Board Members are hardly mentioned. Yet they are the ones who institute budget cuts for safety critical items, they extend plant running times to meet production targets instead of allowing maintenance shutdown schedules to occur as planned. They're the ones who are keen to maximise profits at the expense of safety, no matter what. They're the ones who whinge about how many millions of dollars they've invested and how shareholders would not tolerate poor returns, on and on.
Question for the investor is: Why invest all that money in an unsafe operation? Does it make any sense? I think not because an unsafe oil and gas operation or installation is doomed to go up in smoke, given time.
Think deep, think safety and stay safe.
For one thing these accident types choose the most unexpected times to occur. Typically in the dead of the night, pitch black surroundings, while most persons onboard are in slumberland dreaming of a beautiful and magical tomorrow. So the accident arrives, unannounced, and proceeds to wreak havoc on all, any and every, leaving devastation in its wake. Survivors, if there are any, are left aghast, wondering what went wrong.
The aftermath of any major accident event (MAE) on an oil and gas facility is sure to throw up an endless reel of questions ranging from what was going on at the time, who was doing what, where, how, when and for how long? Was the correct procedure adopted? Was the job hazard thoroughly evaluated? Was the supervisor competent to oversee such jobs? What about safety precautions for the job? Was there a Permit-To-Work clearing the work to go ahead? What about Emergency Response Plan? Was this effective, fully deployed? Did people do what they were supposed to do? ?????
But ofcourse there's no end to it. In the end we promise ourselves improvements against future recurrence and all that. Give it time though, soon enough another one occurs only this time more devastating. Would we ever learn? Only time will tell. Funny we seek to nail down the cause(s), fingers are pointed at the duty supervisor, manager, foreman, watchman or even the duty cook of the day.
Senior Managers and Board Members are hardly mentioned. Yet they are the ones who institute budget cuts for safety critical items, they extend plant running times to meet production targets instead of allowing maintenance shutdown schedules to occur as planned. They're the ones who are keen to maximise profits at the expense of safety, no matter what. They're the ones who whinge about how many millions of dollars they've invested and how shareholders would not tolerate poor returns, on and on.
Question for the investor is: Why invest all that money in an unsafe operation? Does it make any sense? I think not because an unsafe oil and gas operation or installation is doomed to go up in smoke, given time.
Think deep, think safety and stay safe.
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