Offshore staff
LONDON, UK --Britain's Health & Safety Executive (HSE) says more must be done to improve safety on the UK's offshore installations.
HSE has launched a new report, KP3, based on the findings of a three-year investigation. This involved targeted inspections of nearly 100 installations of all types, including fixed and floating platforms, offloading vessels, and mobile drilling rigs.
Among its main conclusions, HSE found that many senior managers were not making adequate use of asset integrity management data, or giving ongoing maintenance sufficient priority. It also found evidence of a decline in integrity performance that might hamper future field development and the UK sector's long-term sustainability.
Oil & Gas UK's chief executive, Malcolm Webb, responded that the UK industry had invested over £3 billion ($6.17 billion) in asset maintenance over the past three years, and had striven to highlight and shift the focus to process safety and asset integrity management.
"However," he added, "the report highlights that there is still work to be done and that in some areas we are not yet where we need to be. We are committed to continuous improvement in this area and believe that the combination of individual company efforts and industry initiatives has already put us on the right track."
11/21/2007
