Managing Process Safety Risks at the Wellsite for Service Companies

Historically our industry has experienced several catastrophic incidents that have acted as a catalyst to drive widespread changes in laws, regulations, and the increasing focus on process safety risk management. The noble goal is to prevent repetition of these catastrophic events. Most of these events were caused by a chain of errors whose start or precursors were not recognized and went unnoticed without the necessary corrective actions needed to prevent a loss of well control or loss of primary containment escalating into catastrophic consequences to personnel, communities, and the environment.

The questions now arise: Are we doing enough to minimize the likelihood of an event or failure in products or services that could lead to loss of well control? What assurances are currently in place to manage the risk of having similar or worse catastrophes? How far can we go operationally to improve process safety and guarantee the integrity of a well? How do we manage performance and better financial results by managing process safety risks? Moreover, how do we learn from what happened to improve/innovate our approach to process safety?

The management of process safety risks at the wellsite requires the collaboration of operators, drilling contractors and service companies, and starts with the identification of the hazards involved in critical activities that can affect well integrity. The controls and barriers required to prevent or mitigate the loss of integrity of the well, and the supporting processes and procedures that certify effectiveness.

For service companies, how can we validate the readiness or preparation of personnel that execute frontline operations? How can we develop the resilience of transitory and rotating crews that execute critical operations? Effectively managing process safety risks requires that each member of the crew can execute their tasks reliably and consistently on the existing job and subsequent job on another wellsite. Since service companies act with a wide range of services and products globally, both onshore and offshore, a methodology that drives optimal performance of the crew and directly assess what crews have learnt, remembered and will actually do at the jobsite is essential. To address this gap, threat-response drills for critical services have been created that drives optimal crew performance and operational readiness while minimizing human errors and reducing non-product time (NPT). These drills follow the decision cycle: Detect-> Diagnose-> Decide-> Do. Detect and diagnose the first signs of a well control threat, decide the immediate actions to be taken and do what is necessary to prevent the situation from escalating into a major disruption or catastrophic event.



This paper presents a systematic approach on how to manage process safety risks at the wellsite for service companies and the need for us to think outside the historical norm. The following key components will be covered:

• Process safety - controls and barrier management
• Managing unplanned changes
• Threat response drills - development and operationalizing.