Barrier management - Influence from the human factor in the arctic

Abstract

In recent years several serious near-misses with major hazard accident potential have happened on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, many of them hydrocarbon leaks. Research has shown that many of these are caused by manual intervention. Despite this fact, current focus in QRAs and have been for a long time, are on technical systems. This is despite recent trends showing no decline in risk level. A higher focus on barriers and operational conditions is encouraged by the government and with upcoming production installations in the Barents Sea and arctic waters where operational conditions can be much harder, this must be a priority. Due to the remoteness and lack of infrastructure, a major hazard accident in these areas will most likely have a higher consequence both in regards to environmental impact but also in regards to loss of lives. Based on this, the work in this thesis is an effort to further the work on human factors and influences from an arctic operational environment, and how to use this in a barrier management perspective by using the quantitative Risk OMT method. By using relevant theory on cold climate exposure and a few legislation demands, two new RIFs are suggested for cold climate operations. One for the weather exposure and named wind chill factor, and one representing other cold climate factors and exposures named fitness for duty. Risk reducing measures by using sensors and Ex-safe screens are also tested. The thesis also suggests how to incorporate the result from Risk OMT into a barrier display, but further suggestions are made towards a more real-time version. This is due to the rapidly changing nature of the risk influences. It also addresses the shortcomings within the field of human, operational, and organizational performance standards and performance requirements. The work in the thesis shows that there is a risk increase induced by the new RIFs based on the arctic operational environment and Risk OMT appears suitable to measure the human factor under such conditions. By use of importance measure and other output from the Risk OMT, good decision support for implementation of risk reducing measures could be provided.