Barrier Management and the Interaction between Technical, Operational and Organisational Barrier Elements

Abstract

Abstract Barrier management is a main priority area for the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA). This has been chosen as a main priority as a result of accident investigations clearly indicating that failure or weakening of barriers is a general cause of incidents. The lesson learned is that safety barriers need to be implemented in an integrated and consistent manner in order to minimize risk, and that technical, organisational and operational elements of the barriers need to be considered. We see a need for better understanding of the interaction between operational, organisational and technical elements that are necessary for the individual barrier to function and to manifest this in the risk assessments. There is also a need for better understanding of how to define performance requirements for the operational and organisational elements and how to include these in specific barrier strategies. PSA have established a project to improve the supervision of the petroleum industry's implementation of barrier management based on the principles in the note "Principles for barrier management in the petroleum industry" (PSA, 2013).