Atlantic LNG Pioneers New Fatigue Risk Management System, Trinidad

LNG production company Atlantic has hailed its new Fatigue Risk Management system as a key success factor for the company’s injury-free safety performance during its maintenance outages for 2012.

For the three major maintenance outages which Atlantic conducted in 2012, the company achieved zero Lost Time Injuries and zero Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Recordable Incidents.

This maintenance performance contributed to Atlantic’s accomplishment last year of a safety record of 19 million man hours worked to date without a serious safety incident.

Speaking recently at the annual Energy Conference, Stephen McShine, Atlantic’s Maintenance Outage Manager highlighted Atlantic’s Consecutive Working Period Policy, an important aspect of the Fatigue Risk Management System.  Under the Policy, Atlantic employees who have worked during maintenance outages are entitled to one compensatory day off for every seven consecutive days or nights worked, with no employee being allowed to work in excess of 14 consecutive days or nights without having at least one (1) mandatory day off.

“We employ this strategy to ensure that our people are well rested so that they can work safely,” Mr. McShine said.  “We try to have our contractors embrace this strategy because it can be helpful.  Most have already done it, but we are still working on getting all the contractors to focus on fatigue management.  We think of it as the essence of safety excellence when delivering turnarounds.”

Atlantic has also adopted the Occupational Fatigue Exhaustion Recovery (OFER) Scale, a diagnostic questionnaire tool that is used in international industry to objectively measure and monitor work-related fatigue in employees. This is the first time the OFER Scale is being used in Trinidad and Tobago.

At Atlantic, maintenance outages (or turnarounds or TARs, as they are termed in the industry) entail shutdowns of the giant units (Trains) that liquefy natural gas at the company’s Point Fortin facility.  During the 20-28 day period of outage, the liquefaction Trains and their associated turbine compressors are serviced by up to 1,300 artisans, craftsmen and technicians working simultaneously to tight schedules and often in tight spaces.  Outages also involve crane-assisted lifts of heavy equipment, including compressors weighing 90 tons.

Mr. McShine explained that The Train 2 turnaround last September was the largest maintenance outage undertaken by Atlantic to date.  Activities consisting of 581 individual jobs were conducted and 4,000 heavy lifts were executed, including forty (40) Class 4 lifts (i.e. lifts of equipment weighing above 5 tons).

“These are significant areas of risk exposure, and Fatigue Management was one of the strategies that we employed to minimize the risk and ensure the safety of our employees and service providers,” Mr. McShine said.  “It is part of Atlantic’s deep commitment to health and safety and to ensuring that everyone who works in our shutdowns not only works safely but is in an environment and culture that encourages and reinforces safety.”

Atlantic’s Fatigue Risk Management System was piloted under the guidance of Atlantic’s Occupational Health Physician, Dr. Ishvan Ramcharitar and involves the implementation of an integrated set of management policies, procedures and practices designed to continuously monitor and improve health and safety aspects related to employee fatigue. The system’s components include fatigue awareness sessions for all staff and a shuttle service to minimize the likelihood of fatigue-related incidents during the commute to and from the company’s Point Fortin facility.

Atlantic is the world’s seventh largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG).  In 2012, the American Chamber of Commerce of Trinidad and Tobago (AMCHAM) presented Atlantic with the award for “Most Improved HSE Performance” in the Chamber’s third annual HSE Excellence Awards.

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Source: Atlantic LNG, March 10, 2013