Risk Indicators for Major Hazards on Offshore Installations

The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway took in 1999 the initiative to develop an approach in order to assess trends and status for the risk levels in the Norwegian offshore petroleum industry, covering major hazards, as well as occupational hazards, health hazards and risk perception, HES culture, motivation and communication. The results are expressed on a national level as well on an installation level, where appropriate. Lagging as well as leading indicators are used. There are individual indicators for a number of barrier elements, including fire and gas detection, a number of safety valves, active fire protection and mustering of personnel. Lessons learned from the project are discussed followed by a discussion of how these lessons may be utilised by individual companies to develop risk indicators for individual installations as well as company wide indicators.Copyright © 2009 by ASME