How the World's Most Comprehensive Goal-Setting Regulatory Regime Works: A Model for the UKCS Regulatory System and Its Unique Implications for MODUs
Authors: Nelson S. , Tranter P. , Grieve A. 
Published: December 2007

The UK is the first nation to undertake a radical restructuring of its previously prescriptive offshore safety legislation toward a goal-setting regime. Under this regime drilling contractors must submit Safety Cases for their installations. This paper examines the progress on this initiative from their perspective. First, a review is undertaken of the four key elements: Safety Case Regulations, PFEER, MAR and DCR. From drilling contractor experiences, the advantages and disadvantages of the goal-setting regime are noted. Then a synthesis is made and the drilling contractors' comments are mapped onto a SWOT analysis which HSE performed to outline their concept of the goal-setting regime. A comparison of the results is made and some conclusions are drawn.

A Summary of the New UK Regulations

The Safety Case Regulations.

The Safety Case Regulations came into force in 1992 in the UK. HSE conducted a tripartite consultative process (HSE, industry, unions) in which the IADC fully participated.

The Safety Case Regulations define a major accident, require an adequate management system and a system of recorded audits. They require all hazards with the potential to cause a major accident to be identified, the risks evaluated and reduced to ALARP (As Low as Reasonably Practicable). HSE must accept the safety case, meaning they closely examine it utilizing specialists and this process must be repeated whenever there are material changes or every three years.

Other important features include a duty of cooperation between all parties, a system of notification for well operations, a requirement for competent personnel and a requirement to consult the workforce. There are other details worth reviewing in the regulations themselves and in previous papers by other authors.

The Safety Case Regulations for the offshore industry were fashioned according to a substantially different philosophy than the previous prescriptive regime. They are couched in goal-setting terms. That is to say, they specify broad objectives without specifying the precise means of achieving them. It is thus left to those companies (duty holders) that create risks to eliminate or mitigate the hazards and thus reduce risks in their workplaces.

The guidance to these regulations was fashioned by the same parties involved in the consultative process. However, IADC concluded that further guidance was needed and embarked on a process of pooling resources to produce a Safety Case Template. This document was invaluable in giving IADC members a starting point toward building their safety cases.

IADC members work for oil companies who, in the North Sea or elsewhere, operate production installations. These oil companies all have robust SMSs for managing those installations. It is natural for them to want to stress their SMS when undertaking any drilling operations with a drilling contractor. IADC recognized early on that there could be differences and conflicts in these systems that could be detrimental to safety. Therefore, we entered into joint discussions with UKOOA and drafted Guidelines on Safety Management System Interfacing, also known as the SMS Bridging Document. The intent of this document is that both parties to the drilling contract would jointly examine their SMSs, find all the conflicts/differences, agree to the means to deal with them, and make the notes in the contract to reflect endorsement by senior management of both parties. All indications are that this system is working very well.

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