DNV and BP are working together to make the U.K. offshore Safety Case a more useful and relevant tool – one to meet Lord Cullen’s intentions.

For the next four years possibly five a dedicated team of DNVs Aberdeen-based offshore experts will be providing BP Exploration Operating Company with integrated support for all its Safety Cases in the Southern North Sea. Integrated is a key word the DNV team, headed by Bo Malmquist, will become a part of the BP organisation in preparing, submitting and updating its safety cases and in seeking innovative means of enhancing offshore safety for plant and workforce throughout the sector. Such Safety Cases were a key recommendation of the post-Piper Alpha Cullen Report, and have been a legal requirement in U.K. offshore operations since 1992. Now, says Malmquist, our aim, together with BP, is to profoundly change the entire Safety Case concept. Safety Cases today satisfy the legal requirements of the U.K. Health & Safety Executive, but more can be done to meet the needs of the workers intended to benefit from them. This post-Cullen regime still largely embraces the ethos of certification; our intention is to make Safety Cases more relevant to each individual site and its workforce. Some companies still see SCs merely as a means to satisfy the law; BP is looking at them more as an aid to business.

Foreseeing the hazards
Award of this Safety Case Support Services contract provides BP with access to DNVsexperience and expertise from a broad range of industry. Fundamental to each Case for Safety demanded bythe HSE is a demonstration that all hazards with the potential to cause a majoraccident have been identified; and that the risks have been evaluated and measures taken to reduce them to a level as low as reasonably practicable. Safety Case management then requires that all documents relating to them remain accurate and up-to-date. This calls for appropriate revision of Operational Safety Cases (OSCs) for BPs existing installations, and preparation of new documents as required for Design, Combined Operations and Abandonment (DSCs, COSCs and ASCs). Staff consultation is also to be an integral part of the DNV contract. One of its main provisions is to establish a better understanding and management of health, safety and environmental risks by the workforce; another is to manage sub-contractors to ensure accurate, cost-effective modelling by external contractors. Thus DNVs active involvement in Major Accident Hazard (MAH) management, and in safety engineering and risk modelling, will be a valuable contribution to BPs drive for enhanced safety. As well as these SC Support Services, DNVs scope of work includes two other areas of involvement: Safety Case Restructuring, and harmonising BPs management of the HSE Design & Construction Regulations (DCRs) and Prevention of Fire & Explosion and Emergency Response (PFEER) Regulations. Both these latter date from 1996, and means of meeting them have been handled differently by BP itself and by its pre-merger operators Amoco and ARCO. Harmonising their management, BP believes, will help its overall task of improving the Safety Case regime.

Refining the Safety Case &
From BPs own viewpoint, introduction of the Safety Case requirement in 1992 influenced its approach to safety on both new and existing installations. Responsible for health, safety and environmental assurance in its Southern North Sea operations is HSE Manager Stuart Harrower. At that time, he recalls, I was involved in preparation of the Safety Case for our Magnus field. We had to ask and answer a lot of questions, questions different from, and in many ways more challenging than, those of the previous prescriptive regime. In developing the Safety Case we had to consider the human and management-system aspects, as well as those of the equipment and hardware. As we have gained experience of SCs over the years, we now see a need to evolve them to improve their accessibility and applicability. The offshore industry has made some modifications, but always within the criteria set by the Regulator, rather than meeting the industrys needs. To an extent, Lord Cullens aspirations have yet to be realised. When BP merged with Amoco at the end of 1998, and combined with ARCO last year, it became evident that though the companies Safety Cases differed only in detail, these variations represented more diverse operating practices. In the Southern North Sea, we have shifted our frame of reference: from a perspective of managing day-to-day operational activity in line with our views on major accident hazards, to managing these hazards and business risk through integrated, documented processes and systems.

& and engaging the workforce
Following the merger with Amoco, top management approached the various facets of our business in different ways. In procurement, for example, we adopted a new and common system throughout the organisation. But HSE aspects we considered more cautiously the main issue was whether such a single, common approach was right. In the event, the Southern North Sea became the prime area for their harmonisation and development. Here there is a wide variety of equipment spanning a 30-year age range, with different heritage, practice and operating systems. Engaging the entire workforce in developing direction, strategy and plans is vital if we are to be successful. DNV has carried out risk analysis for our North of Humber installations since the mid-1990s, and has supported our Safety Case work for ten years. Now, in the SNS, we are looking beyond the traditional Safety Case, and we see DNV as a pioneer in helping us seek a new concept. We are very aware that our two companies vision statements are almost identical no accidents, no harm to people, no damage to the environment, and to safeguard life, property and the environment. Our commitment to these goals is very real and tangible.

R. Keith Evans

Date: 15 March 2001