IO permits a fundamentally new approach to managing and organising offshore activities. But the associated challenges are largely excluded from the industry’s traditional risk analyses.
One of the important considerations presented by IO in the petroleum sector is the way greater vulnerability related to information and communication technology (ICT) affects HSE.
Exercises and incident reporting show that failures with such systems have the potential to increase the risk of serious incidents.
“We must show great respect for the challenges posed by IO in safety-critical activities,” says principal engineer Eirik Bjerkebæk, who plays a key role in the PSA’s work in this area.
“A key requirement in change processes is to check that new solutions provide a good HTO interaction. We know this is demanding, and good reasons exist for moving with caution.”
He notes that IO is part of the general trend towards a more advanced petroleum industry, with companies pushing to recover ever more from fields and with drilling moving into deeper waters and Arctic areas.
At the same time, he says, players along the value chain are seeking to develop new business models. “With the industry becoming more complex, understanding of risk must keep pace. The PSA accordingly needs to develop its methods for risk assessment and supervision.”
Slower
The introduction of IO has gone more slowly than the industry expected a few years ago. Technology blazes the trail, and is then adopted at a manageable and desired scale and pace.
“This isn’t about a unified concept, but complex technological and organisational solutions,” says Mr Bjerkebæk.
“These are assessed differently by the companies – and they relate them to varying strategic goals.”
Work processes are standardised, decision-making becomes more efficient and a number of operational and maintenance operations are monitored and run from land.
With emergency preparedness plans also influenced and developed further, this all makes new demands on management, control and organisation.
Norway has a political vision of being a world leader for HSE in the petroleum sector, while the latter wants to lead the world for IO.
“At the PSA, we expect the industry to work to create synergies between these two goals,” comments Mr Bjerkebæk.
Effective
IO opens the way for more effective monitoring of operations and improved transfer of real-time data from offshore installations to decision-makers on land.
“This can yield an HSE gain because safety-critical equipment is followed up better,” Mr Bjerkebæk says.
“You can intervene earlier and more appropriately when non-conformances arise.
“In principle, there’s nothing wrong with transferring offshore functions to land. Requirements for establishing and monitoring barriers remain the same, and formal responsibilities for complying with regulations don’t change.
"Organisational models and decision-making authority must be adapted to these frameworks. A broad adoption of IO accordingly assumes that the industry develops methods and tools suited to managing and monitoring risk in the new operating concepts.”
The Norwegian unions want to keep remote operation of offshore activities to a minimum, and are worried about workforce downsizing on the installations.
“But we already have a number of unstaffed installations,” Mr Bjerkebæk points out. “The scope of subsea production will also increase. Snøhvit and Ormen Lange are among our most advanced IO solutions.”
However, he does not envisage that big platforms on the NCS will become remotely operated any time soon.
“Such change processes call for a big commitment to qualifying new solutions.”
Av Per Lars Tonstad
