Offshore staff
CAERPHILLY, UK – Great Britain’s Health and Safety Executive released its safety records for 2009/2010 with a warning that the offshore industry is “not good enough”. There were no deaths for the third consecutive year, but the number of major injuries went up as did hydrocarbon releases. The information was released today to coincide with the Offshore Northern Seas 2010 conference.
The statistics collected by HSE indicate 50 total major injuries in 2009/10. This is an increase of 20 from 2008/09. An increase in major and minor significant unplanned hydrocarbon releases also increased, reaching an estimated 85 for the time span. There were 61 in the 2008/09 span.
In 2009/10 there was a significant reduction in the minor over-three-day injury rate, maintaining a downward trend, reaching 414 workers per 100,000 compared with 496 in the previous period.
A total of 443 dangerous occurrences were reported, 34 fewer than in 2008/09. The main types reported were hydrocarbon releases (42%), failure of equipment offshore (23%), well-related incidents (6%), and failures relating to lifting operations (9%).
Steve Walker, head of HSE’s offshore division noted that while there were no reportable fatalities, 17 workers did die in offshore travel incidents.
08/24/2010
