Accident reported to the police
June 8, 2010
By Steen Hartvig Jacobsen, journalist
During the clean-up of a well in connection with the development of the Nini East Field, an employee from the company Schlumberger was injured on 15 November 2009 when hit by a riser during a pressure test of well-cleaning equipment, and his injuries proved fatal. Together with the police and Esbjerg’s Medical Officer of Health, the DEA made an immediate inspection of Mærsk Resolute, where the fatal injury occurred, to clarify the circumstances of the accident.
Violation of the Offshore Safety Act
The conclusions drawn in the DEA’s final report on the accident resulted in the DEA reporting the subcontractor Schlumberger, the drilling contractor Maersk Drilling and the operator DONG E&P to the police and request that fines be imposed for violation of the Offshore Safety Act.
It appears from the DEA’s report from March 2010 that Schlumberger had failed to ensure that employees assigned to Schlumberger’s special tasks at short notice had the necessary training and experience in using the relevant equipment.
Nor did Maersk Drilling and DONG E&P ensure that all procedures and other health and safety issues, see the Offshore Safety Act, had been dealt with satisfactorily.
To prevent similar accidents, the DEA has initiated a dialogue with the companies involved to review the measures initiated on the basis of the investigations. The DEA also supervises the interaction and coordination between operators and subcontractors on mobile drilling rigs.
Types of supervision
The DEA operates with three main types of supervision of offshore installations: immediate inspections carried out in connection with work-related accidents; project supervision of new facilities and major modifications; and operations supervision consisting of regular annual inspections, unannounced inspections and supervision of special topics. During the regular annual inspection of all manned fixed installations and mobile units, the DEA’s employees review any work-related accidents, hydrocarbon gas releases and the maintenance of safety-critical equipment together with the safety organization on the installation or unit.
In recent years, the DEA has also carried out a number of unannounced inspections, including an inspection of the Siri platform in November 2009 in connection with DONG E&P’s work on supporting the caisson, which contains the wells and risers. The purpose of the inspection was to check whether the requirements stipulated by the DEA regarding the operation of the platform during the repairs had been complied with. The inspection identified no critical points.
In 2009, the DEA’s supervision of special topics focused on the psychological working environment, and the DEA will continue to focus on this topic in 2010. This supervision is carried out in three phases, consisting of an initial review of the management system, followed by an onshore inspection of the operating company, and ending with an inspection of the psychological working environment on the offshore installation. The next supervision campaign will be targeted at musculoskeletal disorders. Topics are prioritized in accordance with the Government’s onshore working environment programme.
Ageing offshore installations
Some of the first offshore installations established in the 1980s have now exceeded their original design life of about 25 years. Therefore, the operators have had to recalculate the strength and stability of the load-bearing structures for these installations. The DEA is monitoring this work closely and supervising that the companies carry out maintenance and monitoring of the load-bearing structures as planned.
Within the next ten years, the first installations are expected to be decommissioned, either because the production capacity of an installation will exceed the demand as a result of falling production from the field, or because whole fields are no longer considered financially viable. If the Danish state does not wish to take over the installations according to the relevant licence conditions, the operator will be responsible for removing the installations.
Increased accident frequency in 2009
Every year, the DEA calculates the accident frequency for the offshore installations, which is the number of accidents reported per million working hours. The accident frequency increased from 3.5 in 2008 to 4.5 in 2009. By comparison, the calculated accident frequency for onshore companies was 10.7 in 2008. A total of 24 work-related accidents were reported in 2009, one of which proved fatal.