Risk Assessment Systems for a Well Services Company
Authors: Hampden-Smith G. , Sealy I. 
Published: December 2007

Between 1993 and 1995 the North Sea Region of Schlumberger Wireline & Testing developed two approaches to the use of Risk Assessments as an accident prevention tool. Initial work concentrated on producing generic assessments for typical wireline and well testing operations. These assessments have been published and continuously improved. In 1995 work began on a simple, job specific risk assessment tool kit for use during pre-job planning and for use at the wellsite. This paper describes how these assessment systems, both generic and job-specific, have been developed and implemented and indicate the interest displayed by many of our clients in this approach.

Introduction

Risk awareness and identification programmes were introduced to the North Sea Region of Schlumberger Wireline & Testing in 1991. Co-incident with this there were a number of statutory changes in the European Union and the United Kingdom that required the use of systematic risk assessment as a safety management tool. In this paper we examine the development and limitations of the risk awareness and identification programme. We then describe the introduction of generic risk assessments to the organisation that occurred in the period 1993 to 1994. The generic approach to risk assessment also has limitations and following-on from this work we began to develop job specific risk assessment programmes. These were piloted in our Aberdeen well testing operations group (selected as a result of the catastrophic potential of failures of well testing equipment), initially in the form of Hazard and Operability Studies (HAZOPS). The use of HAZOPS was followed by work with Hazard Identification (HAZID), Critical Task Analysis (CTA) and Failure Modes & Effects Analysis (FMEA). Having gained experience with each of these tools (all of which are widely used in chemicals and process industries but prior to 1990 were not widely used in the well services industry) we decided to develop a programme that would integrate the features of all of these systems. This programme is being introduced to our operations groups in 1996.

The Risk Identification Report (RIR) System

Introduced in 1991, the RIR system is designed to encourage employees to report near-accidents, thereby raising awareness and reducing accident rates, as well as to record and categorize all health, safety and environmental incidents. In 1995 the North Sea Region business group recorded an average of three reports per employee, with over sixty percent of employees participating. An electronic database of nearly nine thousand incident reports has been established in the Region over the five years from 1991 to 1995.

The RIR system requires management led investigation. analysis and follow-up action only for those reports with actual severity of 'Serious' or greater (see Fig. 1). From 1994 limited efforts were made to introduce formal investigation and follow-up action for incidents of lower severity where there was clearly potential for more serious consequences. However, as the system does not formally categorise or record potential this has had only limited success.

This database has been used for simple statistical analysis purposes in order that trends and problems areas can be identified. Data from the system is presented below. The format used for the incident triangles is described in Figure 1.

Figure 2 presents absolute totals for reports, in each of the five selected categories, to the left-hand side and figures normalised to a base of one thousand Near Accident reports are presented on the right-hand side of each triangle.

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