psa/molunch 3
It matters
Ladies and gentlemen
Each of you sitting here today plays an important role in safety work for the business which brings us together during ONS in Stavanger. Are you a manager, on land or offshore? Are you an engineer, an economist, a political scientist, a union official, a surface treatment specialist, a roughneck, an oil journalist, a politician or a regulator? What YOU do – or choose not to do – in your job plays a role.
It matters.
Our actions have consequences. Our insights, our motives, our understanding are important. That applies to you and to me. The ability to collaborate, understand roles and focus on the most fundamental values means a lot.
The safety mindset is about concern for the people, the environment and the material assets involved in the job of finding, producing, processing and exporting oil and gas.
If a company is to achieve results while making itself worthy of a good reputation, be in no doubt – safety matters.
Transferring experience from tragic incidents affecting our business must be fundamental to the knowledge on which the activity is based today. I personally became director of safety at the Norwegian regulator in March 1980. Two weeks later, the Alexander L Kielland unit capsized on the Ekofisk field in the North Sea, with the loss of 123 people. Many more were scarred for life. A whole nation was filled with disbelief. How could this happen? Which actions and decisions – or absence of them – led to that disastrous March day?
Neither I nor the Norwegian petroleum industry will ever be the same after what happed in the spring of 1980. That period has affected both me personally and my approach to safety issues every single day since.
Seven years after the Kielland incident, in July 1988, Britain’s Piper Alpha platform exploded into a sea of flame which killed 167 people. Again, it scarred the lives of many more. My position in Norway meant that I was heavily involved in the hearings and follow-up on Piper. I personally experienced the shock and the sorrow at close hand. How could this happen? Which actions and decisions – or absence of them – led to that disastrous July day?
We eventually came up with many answers after Kielland and Piper – not least the failure to understand risk and the factors which cause major accidents. These two disasters fundamentally changed the understanding of risk, the regulations and the approach to oil and gas activities, first in Norway and then in the UK.
We learnt.
What concerns me is that we seem to be forgetting these lessons. A worryingly large proportion of those involved in the business today are unfamiliar with the disasters of the 1980s. They don’t know what caused them or what they meant – and still very much mean – for our understanding of risk and our approach to major accidents. Why is this knowledge not being transmitted to new generations? What do we need to do to ensure that it is retained in the future?
Another major accident which sent shock waves around the world occurred in March 2005, when BP’s Texas City refinery in the USA suffered a major explosion. Fifteen people died, and more than 100 were injured. The subsequent inquiry generated fresh seismic tremors in the industry, revealing an almost incredible sequence of inadequate management, faulty assessments and wrong behaviour ahead of the disaster.
The reports were particularly clear about the importance of management. You as a manager must give safety its necessary place in the organisation and in daily operations. Your priorities are perhaps the factor which has the biggest impact on the management of major accident risk.
Let us hope that we have all now learnt something important.
The Norwegian petroleum industry is undoubtedly highly competent, and does much good safety work. We are already pioneers in many areas, but our ambitions are sky-high. Our government’s goal is that Norway will be a world leader for health, safety and the environment in this sector.
If we are to meet this goal, everyone involved must collaborate – employers, workers and the authorities. We have some good examples of the way such a tripartite focus yields positive results. This collaboration has, for instance, contributed to a successful outcome for the gas leak reduction project pursued by the Norwegian Oil Industry Association, with a marked and gratifying decline in the number of hydrocarbon leaks on the Norwegian continental shelf. We now have similar expectations for a reduction in the health risks posed by chemicals and for completing the lifeboat project in line with the good work done over three years.
A requirement for good results is that everyone involved in the industry understands and respects their various roles. Norway’s goal-setting regulations are demanding but also provide opportunities. Companies can choose individual and relevant solutions for reaching the goal of safe operation. Lessons learnt are incorporated in the regulations, codes and standards which make up the totality of the Norwegian regulatory framework. The regulator’s job includes interpreting and enforcing the regulations. Respect for the overall responsibility assigned to the regulatory authorities is absolutely essential for the continued functioning of the established system – and for achieving Norway’s ambitious HSE goals in its most important industry.
So let us learn from the past and apply those lessons to every level of the business. And above all, let us make sure that we do not need new disasters in order to remember the old. We all have a responsibility here.
It really matters.
Thank you for your attention.