(46aa) How to Better Manage the Combined Effects of Barrier (IPL) Impairment and Ongoing Work Hazard Risks

In recent years there has been a growing recognition that the way we identify and manage cumulative risk in our offshore installations needs to be modified to address the frequency of change of the sources of risk. As one of those main sources of risk, monitoring and maintaining the condition of our independent layers of protection (ILP’s) has become a major challenge given the number of protection and mitigation systems on a typical offshore installation. This is especially true for aging assets where maintaining integrity of these systems has become a never ending battle in more mature basin areas. Adding to the complexity of this challenge is the necessity to account not only for the condition of these systems but also for the ongoing day to day work on the plant. We need to understand how this impacts on the effectiveness of protection layers, the new hazards which it introduces and be in a position to judge whether the resultant cumulative risk posed by a work plan is acceptable or not. This paper will explain this challenge in detail and talk about ways in which technology can help manage such risks. It will discuss the operations reality of day to day work on a plant, the not so uncommon conditions of protection layers and the necessity to defeat or remove many of these systems in order to carry out maintenance and repair work.

Rigorous quantitative risk assessments techniques do not lend themselves to the dynamically changing conditions of day to day operations. The assessment of these risks and the judgement of what activities are safe to execute therefore relies on the experience and competence of the people at the front line. There are now emerging, new technology platforms where much improved tools can be used to help support these "in field" decisions. The paper will explore how these tools can be used on a day to day basis and how as an industry we can start to use more meaningful real time data to provide a better picture of the sources and magnitude of risk. The status of protection layers can be shown graphically alongside ongoing or planned work to show their potential impact on each other. As a result,  decisions on what is safe to execute today or to plan for tomorrow can be made with much better insight on risk

For nearly 12 years our software systems have been used for managing the risks associated with work offshore (in the UKCS North Sea our systems are used on 90% of platforms). They have been used to help operations people manage task hazard risk as well as to account for risks associated with non performing equipment and impaired independent protection layers.