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Spe 36913 Ms
Spe 36913 Ms
Introduction
Following Lord Cullen’s Public Inquiry into the
Abstract 1988 Piper Alpha disaster, in 1992 the UK
Safety Regulations in the UK require operators introduced a requirement for offshore
to demonstrate that the risks to workers from installations in its sector of the North Sea to
well operations on offshore platforms have been submit safety cases for acceptance by the
reduced to the lowest level that is reasonably Offshore Safety Division of the UK Health and
practical. Each offshore platform in the UK has
Safety Executive, Amongst the details to be
a safety case which includes a quantified risk
included in the safe cases are:
assessment of well operation hazards with the
(a) a demonstration that all hazards with the
potential to cause a major accident, potential to cause a major accident have been
Assessment of the safety cases by the UK identified,
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) showed that
(b) a demonstration that risks have been
few operators have specifically analysed risks evaluated and measures have been, or will be,
resulting from well workover or wireline
taken to reduce the risks to persons affected by
operations, regarding such risks as subsumed
those hazards to the lowest level that is
within general blowout risks. Where
reasonably practicable.
workovedwirelining have been considered
Examination of the way in which these
separately, the risk estimates have been requirements were being met with respect to
determined from average worldwide historical workover/wirelining issues in a number of safety
hydrocarbon release frequencies and not by cases revealed concerns in that:
analysis of particular operations being carried (a) the issue of workover/wirelining activities
out on a specific platform. The prevalent
had not been specifically considered within
conclusion from such risk analyses is that the
many safety casesz, Although there are many
contribution of workoverhvireline risks to the different tasks that can be carried out under the
total platform risk levels is very small. In order general description of workover/wirelining, there
to evaluate whether such a conclusion is had otlen been no attempt to examine such
necessarily valid in all cases, HSE undertook a tasks individually and to determine what could
study to establish a method for estimating go wrong, its significance, its likelihood and
workover/wirelining risks for a number of
whether there were possible remedial
different types of platform. measures,
This paper describes the method used by HSE
(b) where separate workover/wirelining risk
to assess the risk of hydrocarbon releases figures had been calculated, the estimates often
during workover and wireline operations. The were for very low risk levels which it was
workscope was restricted to completed wells on claimed justified the area not being examined in
offshore platforms. The m~thod is based on a further detail. Well Operations specialists in
detailed analysis of all the different potential OSD were not convinced that this necessarily
failure modes associated with the various well
gave a reliable or realistic picture,
intervention operations carried out on these (c) where separate risk estimates had been
platforms. The failure mode analysis results are provided these had generally been calculated by
then used to estimate the significance of these takina world-wide averaae blowout frequencies
367 -
and combining these with installation-specific TUBING CHANGE OUT (TC)
consequence analysis. In view of the potential WORKOVER ON COMPLETED WELLS (WOCW)
great diversity of workover/wirelining activities COILED TUBING OPERATIONS (CT)
and differences in the frequency with which they POST WORKOVER PROCESSES (PWP)
were carried out on individual installation there
were concerns as to whether this use of single As might be expected given the number of
370
RISK CALCULATIONS large number of high release potential
Hydrocarbon releases of all sizes from operations, they would not necessarily be valid.
workover/wirelining operations could present a No specific estimates were made with respect
potential threat to personnel on the installation, to societal or group risk. However since such
However whilst large releases present a threat parameters are directly related to the frequency
to all personnel on the installation, the effect of of large hydrocarbon releases it can be seen
371
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FIGURE 1 - FAULT TREE EXAMPLE
‘7
RELEASE OF
HYDROCARBON
&
,
II I1
I
II
ANNUAL EXPLOSIVE
7
EXPLOSIVES X-MAS
NO. OF CHARGE
INITIATE TREE
ELECTRIC SUSCEPTIBLE
IN THE
LINE TO SUFFICIENTLY
INITIATION
X-MAS DAMAGED
OPERATIONS
TREE AREA
USING A BY RADIO FOR
PERFORATING SIGNAL OR P6 RELEASE
GUN STRAY ,I #
I TO OCCUR
A
ELECTRICAL
F CURRENT RADIO & OTHER P7
SILENCE STRAY
PI NOT ELECTRIC DHSV
DHSV
u
MAINTAINED CURRENT OUT
PRESENT OF LOCKED
WHILST
ALL F?ADIO HOLE OPEN
RUNNING
L-
CHARGES ::NCE
IN
DO NOT ‘5 WELL CAN
HOLE
DETONATE yH1l~NEc FLOW P11 P10
UNAIDED
P2 P. PULLING DHSV
. TO THE
OUT OF FAILS
SURFACE
HOLE ON
J DEMAND
8.0 X 104
PREDICTED LARGE LIMITED
DURATION RELEASE FREQUENCY
(YR”)
5.4 x 10-2
RELEASE FREQUENCY BASED ON
AVERAGE HISTORICAL BLOWOUT
DATA*
7.95 x 10-3
l----+-
X X
ti
● Allowing for the annual number of workoverhvkeline operations on each installation
TABLE 2
TABLE 3
CT7 Fracture stimulation with a tree saver, packing on tubing hanger fails -
release occurs.
1
CT4 Coiled tubing strippers will not seal, (eg coiled tubing collapses) - release
occurs,
1
VJOCW8 Pulling out of hole with a partially fired perforating gun, radio silence Iifled,
1-
cwn detonates, damages X-mas tree - release occurs.
Wocwl 2 Operator detonates perforating guns at too shallow a depth, well blows
out internally. and hydrocarbons
. find a route to surface.
1
CT9 I Coiled tubing or tool stuck across X-mas tree, tree displaced to water and
frozen with N, to form a plug to install fishing lubricator. Pressure control
equipment cracks, thaws out and release occurs. I
PbVP2 Gas lift - while handling equipment, (eg lubricator), it knocks and
dameges X-mas tree annulus valve, No downhole annular safety valve or
downhole annular safetv valve fails. Live annukrs causes aaa release.
TC5 Downhole plug incorrectly set (or wireline retrievable MLSV not correctly
reset afler opn), leaks, well influxes after X-maa tree removed before bop
installed (or, for MLSV, after bop removed before X-mas tree replaced) -
releaae occurs,
PWP 1 On well start-up, high pressure gas is injected down annulus, hole in
tubing causes high pressure gas to be circulated to production facilities -
causea vessel rupture,
374
TABLE 4
INSTALLATION PREDICTED INDIVIDUAL RISK INDIVIDUAL RISK INDIVIDUAL RISK FROM ALL
CONTRIBUTION FROM CONTRIBUTION FROM OFFSHORE HAZARDS
WORKOVERIWIRELINING WORKOVER/WIRELINING (FROM SAFETY CASE)
FROM THIS STUDY USING AVERAGE HISTORICAL
BLOWOUT FREQUENCY
(FROM SAFETY CASE]
375