Safety During Offshore Drilling Operation

Abstract

Abstract Recently, a lot of efforts have been done by the industry and science to minimize the potential risks arising from process incidents centering on the offshore drilling operations. Offshore drilling operations are commonly characterized by potentially hazardous conditions with severe consequences and are quite different from the onshore drilling operations. The complex nature of offshore drilling rigs, their design features, and the intricacies of offshore drilling operations contributes to the risks faced by a large segment of workforce in this sector. The consequences of such risks include damage to assets and the environment. The Macondo deepwater Gulf of Mexico blowout and spill that occurred in 2010 and the Piper Alpha in the North Sea that occurred in 1998 can be cited as examples of the worst offshore disasters witnessed in the world. These incidents resulted in huge losses of both human and financial resources. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts that have been put in place to avert accidents of this nature but have failed to prevent these unfortunate events. Furthermore, it has become pertinent that new methods should be developed to investigate the cause of offshore accidents. These efforts should cover the provision of an accurate dynamic framework that propagates the accurate safety measures derived from both the academic and practical viewpoints that able to reduce the occurrence of accidents. This chapter has compiled a summation of more than 17 years of rich experience in the oil and gas industry, with the inclusion of offshore drilling operations to develop key concepts and guidelines that will help researchers, scholars, and the experts for a better understanding of safe offshore drilling operations and associated risks from operational and occupational perspectives. Thus, the primary objective of this chapter is to explain safety in the offshore drilling operations from the operational and occupational aspects. This statement will be supported by a hypothetical scenario from the Sultanate of Oman on how to ensure safe, sustained practices while drilling an offshore well, which can be used as a model of excellence of safe offshore drilling operation. The latter part of this chapter includes the presentation of an overview prescribed by the contemporary HSE management system that is commonly used by the oil and gas industry. It also illustrates description of common occupational accidents that have been witnessed in the industry.