Process Safety – Offshore and Onshore

The offshore oil and gas industry and onshore process facilities share many process safety concerns. Both handle large volumes of flammable and toxic chemicals, often at high pressure and temperature. Nevertheless, there are significant differences between the ways in which the two industries manage process safety. This paper will compare the two industries. Issues covered include:

• Seminal events (Piper Alpha offshore; Flixborough and the Pasadena incidents onshore).
• The Safety Case regime that is used in Europe, but not in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Technical differences such as layout issues offshore and the use of hazardous chemicals onshore.
• The regulatory environment.
• Trends affecting process safety in the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the onshore process industries.