Offshore Safety: Don’t fall in the paperwork trap

Day two of Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference (OEEC) being held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, started with a technical session with offshore safety as a topic.

As the EU Offshore Safety Directive (OSD) came into force in July 2015, this session looked at the consequences of the new directive and shared the experience of different stakeholders in implementing the changes.

It also looked at the challenges of diverging safety regimes between countries, partners and industry organizations and explored the need for collaboration.

This session was a journey of implementation of the EU Offshore Safety Directive from the perspectives of operator, drilling contractor, and independent verifier.

The session’s moderator was George Galloway, Director at WellSpec and the speakers were Gert-Jan Windhorst, Deputy Secretary General, NOGEPA, Jürgen Joosten, HSE Manager NL Operations, Centrica Production Nederland B.V., Ben Oudman, Head of Gas Consulting & Services, DNV GL – Oil & Gas Netherlands and Bram Leerdam, HSE&Q Manager, Paragon Offshore (a member of IADC).

NOGEPA’s Gert-Jan Windhorst reminded the audience how the industry got here after the Piper Alpha and Macondo incidents. Windhorst said that accidents could be prevented and that the focus should be on smaller companies and operations and on what prevents accidents to happen. Windhorst emphasized: “Don’t fall in the paperwork trap.”

He also said that the companies were ready for the OSD implementation in the Dutch law.

According to Centrica’s Joosten, the OSD is being introduced with an intention to provide adequate assurance that risk and potential impact from major offshore accidents is minimized and consistently classified throughout the EU.

When asked by a member of the audience whether the offshore safety directive will lead to more safety or more paperwork for the operators, DNV GL’s Oudman said that the OSD should lead to less paperwork because there is more clarity and less duplication.

“We don’t aim to have more paperwork,” Oudman said.

However, Joosten said that it depends on the company itself, while Paragon Offshore’s Leerdam said if you don’t have a system in place it takes weeks to figure it out.

Our reporter Nermina Kulović is tweeting live updates from Offshore Energy Exhibition and Conference 2015. You can follow her using her Twitter handle @N_Navingo.

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Offshore Energy Today Staff