Safety issues in Petroleum

Upstream Industry
Prof. V. P. Sharma
Department of Petroleum Engineering, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad
Safety
 Why safety?
To protect great
investment of life ,
property & environment
 How ?
By means of equipment
& procedures
Industry safety
 Field operators and field
service technicians face
safety hazards on a daily
basis.
 Safety is important not
only for people’s wellbeing
but also for a business’s
bottom line.
Safety
2016 National safety council report:
 Average cost of a minor workplace
injury to be 16 times higher than the
cost of prevention and as much as 48
times greater for serious injuries or
fatalities.

Shockingly, 78% of safety professionals are still using

outdated methods to manage safety tasks.
As a result, only 19% are being notified of safety
hazards in real time.
Safety
Investment in safety programs and cloud technology:
(American society of safety engineers)
 Yield between USD 2 and 6 in return for every USD 1
invested with an average safety return on investment
(ROI) of USD 4.14.

 A strong injury and illness

prevention program has
shown to achieve a 15-35%
reduction in workplace
injuries.
Safety
Seven steps to safer operations
(Nick Candito, Aug 17, 2017; HSE NOW; SPE)
 1. Define Goals
 Forms checklists that were defined on paper is to digital so that
contractors and employees can gain access.
 2. Engage field operators early in the process
 Involve your key field employees earlier in the vetting of new
technology so you can get their support and feedback.
 3. Consider the motivating factors and Barriers
 People are more likely to complete a task when they have skills, time,
materials, knowledge and motivation to do so.
 Employees tend to fall apart when they feel the procedure is useless
Safety
Seven steps to safer operations
(Nick Candito, Aug 17, 2017; HSE NOW; SPE)
 4. Pilot and Report
 A good process can be ruined by poor implementation and supervisors
must be brought on board to help and support the implementation.
 Ask for more feedback then deploy the new and improved version
 5. Make the Data Actionable
 Going paperless provides a canvas that can be flexible and actionable.
Defining the problem you want to solve and having a flexible solution
can provide managers or supervisors with the ability to view safety
audits.
Safety
Seven steps to safer operations
(Nick Candito, Aug 17, 2017; HSE NOW; SPE)
 6. Enforce Accountability and Visibility
 Create a process that holds everyone accountable for being visibly
involved especially managers and supervisors.
 7. Celebrate Success
 Make your efforts public to keep everyone motivated and updated
through out the process, and be sure to reward employees for their
contributions to safer operations.
Safety
IOGP Life-Saving Rules
(Gordon Ballard, JPT; Aug, 2017)
 International Association of Oil and Gas Producers
(IOGP) Life-Saving rules are considered Industry good
practices.
 E.g.: Shell who implemented these rules have seen a 75%
reduction in fatalities and a 35% reduction in lost-time
injuries since 2009, when they implemented rules.
 Analysis of 1,484 fatal incidents reported in last 20 years
indicate that, if IOGP rules are followed some of the
fatalities could be prevented.
Safety
IOGP Life-Saving Rules
(Gordon Ballard, JPT; Aug, 2017)
 These include failures in proper training, competence,
hazard identification, risk assessment, inattention
supervision and procedures.
 Standard set of Industry guidelines which improves
understanding and compliance for multi-language and
multi-cultural settings.
 Industry leaders must change their mindset from an
aspiration of zero fatalities to an expectation of zero
fatalities.
 IOGP Life-Saving Rules
(Gordon Ballard, JPT; Aug, 2017)

 Aero-space safety practice rules are the best one.

 “Rules are essentially easy to follow but harder to put
in practice”
Top 3 Safety Issues in Oil and Gas Industry
 Corporate
Leadership and
Safety Culture

 Effectiveness of
Management
Systems

 Hazard
Identification and
Risk Mitigation
Safety policies
The program focuses on:

 Improving health, safety and training programs and

implementing one standard for entire company

 Enabling employees to participate

 Implementing an employee relations program

Safety policies
PREPARING
PERSONAL
PERSONALTHE SITE
PROTECTIVE
PROTECTIVE
EQUIPMENT
EQUIPMENT
STORAGE
STORAGE AND
AND
MATERIAL
MATERIAL
HANDLING
HANDLING

GENERAL
EQUIPMENT
EQUIPMENT
SAFETY
SAFETY

PRECAUTIONS
PRECAUTIONS
FOR
FOR DRILLING
DRILLING
IN
IN LANDFILLS
LANDFILLS
ELECTRICA
L SAFETY
Personal protective equipment

Individual protective equipment

Regular safety meetings

Equipment pre-checks

Preventative maintenance
Electrical safety
 Splicing, connecting, or
handling of live circuits
should never be done

 All electrical equipments

should be properly
grounded

 Test flow should be

prevented from spraying
water into any electrical
enclosures .
General equipment safety

SAFE USE OF HAND

TOOLS

WIRE ROPE,HOISTS
AND CAT HEAD
SAFETY
Personal protective equipment
Personal protective
equipment (PPE) is anything
used or worn by a person to
minimize risk to the person's
health or safety and includes a
wide range of clothing and
safety equipment. PPE includes
boots, face masks, hard hats, ear
plugs, respirators, gloves, safety
harnesses, high visibility clothing
etc
Personal protective equipment

WORKPLACE INSPECTIONS

JHSC INSPECTIONS

FITNESS FOR DUTY

OPERATING PROCEDURES

DIVISION SAFETY
PLANS(DSP)
Vehicle collisions
 Roughly 4 of every
10 workers killed
on the job in this
industry are killed
as a result of a
highway vehicle
incident due to the
vehicle collisions.
Fall protection
 Workers might be required
to access platforms and
equipment located high
above the ground. Safety
Hazard requires fall
protection to prevent falls
from the mast, drilling
platform, and other elevated
equipment.
Explosions and Fires
 Workers in the oil and gas industries face the risk of fire
and explosion due to ignition of flammable vapors or
gases.
 Flammable gases, such as well gases, vapors, and
hydrogen sulfide, can be released from wells, trucks,
production equipment or surface equipment such as tanks
and shale shakers.
 Ignition sources can include static, electrical energy
sources, open flames, lightning, cigarettes, cutting and
welding tools, hot surfaces, and frictional heat.
High Pressure Lines and Equipment
 Workers might be exposed to
hazards from compressed
gases or from high-pressure
lines.
 Internal erosion of lines might
result in leaks or line bursts,
exposing workers to high-
pressure hazards from
compressed gases or from
high-pressure lines.
 If connections securing high-
pressure lines fail, struck-by
hazards might be created.
Machine Hazards
 Oil and gas extraction workers
may be exposed to a wide
variety of rotating wellhead
equipment, including top drives
and Kelly drives, draw works,
pumps, compressors, catheads,
hoist blocks, belt wheels, and
conveyors, and might be injured
if they are struck by or caught
between unguarded machines. 
Confined spaces

 workers are often required to enter confined spaces such as

petroleum and other storage tanks, mud pits, reserve pits and
other excavated areas, sand storage containers, and other
confined spaces around a wellhead.
 Safety hazards associated with confined spaces include
ignition of flammable vapors or gases. Health hazards include
asphyxiation and exposure to hazardous chemicals.
Chemical exposures

 There is a lack of existing information regarding the variety

and magnitude of chemical exposure risks to oil and gas
extraction workers.
 To determine if risks are present, oil and gas industries to
identify, characterize and (if needed) control workplace
chemical exposures.
Working in remote locations

 operators and pipeline workers face their share of challenges throughout

their worksite.
 workers in remote areas of the world, be isolated outdoors or face
hazardous conditions.
 Lone workers are considered to be those employees out of sight and
sound from others
Technology that improves emergency
response times

 To replace antiquated check-in procedures to ensure the ongoing

safety of employees.
 Automatic detection technology can improve the outcome for an
employee who has suffered a workplace injury, health event or
physical assault during the winter and cannot call for help.
 Real-time monitoring solutions combined with communication and
precise employee positioning technologies for every scenario—
indoors, outdoors, remote and driving locations.
Piper Alpha
Piper Alpha disaster in the
North Sea, which is in terms
of loss of life, the worst
disaster in the history of the
offshore oil industry
occurred on July 6, 1988

The Piper Alpha Memorial Garden is located in Aberdeen

DEEPWATER HARIZON OIL SPILL
Macondo Oil Spell
Spell Data 20th April – 15th July 2010
Well Officially sealed: 19th Sept. 2010
CAUSE: Wellhead Blowont
Causalities:13 dead (11 killed on Deepwater
horizon, 2 additional at related
deaths)

Operator: Transocean under contract with BP.

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SPILL CHARACTERISTICS
 Volume : Upto 4,900,000 barrels (206,000,000 US Gallons; 779000
Cubic meters).
 Area 2500 to 68,000 sq.miles (6500 to 180,000 km2).
 80 square miles (210 km2) Kill zone where it looks everything is
dead on the seafloor
 Spells continues to cause extensive damage to marine and wild life
habitats as well as Gulf ‘s fishing & tourism Industries.
 January 2011, eight months after explosion tar balls continues to
wash up, oil sheer trails seen, wetlands marsh grass remains fouled
and dying.
Oil slick is brighter than the surrounding
water in some places and darker than the
surrounding water on others due to sun's
Reflection and positioning of the
centerline of the path of satellite.
The tip of Mississippi Delta is surrounded
by muddy water, which appears tan.
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A summary of the main impacts of each disaster is given in the table below
Thank you