bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Integrity of Non-Piggable Oil and Gas Flowlines Contributing Factors and Proposed Mitigation Methods
Authors: Al Janahi M. I. , Elkhatib A. H. , Al Mazrouei T. , Al Menhali S. , Al Katheiri G.
Published: April 2018

Integrity management of Non-Piggable Gas and Oil Flowlines is a challenge. In this paper, Contributing Factors affecting Flowlines integrity and life cycle cost effective Mitigation Methods are discussed.

Gas Flowlines were designed without pigging facilities and handle wet natural gas. Several leaks were reported due to internal and external corrosion. Hence, it was essential to assure integrity of those lines.

One Flowline was piloted for conventional MFL intelligent pigging driven by nitrogen. Portable launcher and receiver facilities were installed avoiding elbows which exist only at both ends of the Flowline.

Intelligent pigging revealed few integrity threats anomalies along the trial Flowline, replacement of defective sections were completed.

The project completed successfully for implementing pigging of non-Piggable gas Flowlines for condition assessment and proactive repairs actions, which increase confidence in plant condition and assure health and safety.

Number of leaks in oil Flowlines is increasing in recent years mainly due to internal corrosion, Several corrosion mitigation options are considered in this paper including Solar Chemical injection, HDPE internal lining, Non-metallic line (RTP) oil Flowlines.

HDPE internal lining is proposed for corrosion mitigation of oil Flowlines with welded coupling and one-way valve in the liner
Cohabitation and Co-Operation Between Oil Activities and Environmental Sensitive Areas in Mender Field
Authors: AlBeshr Khalid , Al Hammadi Saud , Reddy Vijaya Bhaskar , Alkarbi Saleh Abdulla , Dass Kishan , Ameri Shaikha Al
Published: April 2018

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) proposes to develop a Greenfield oil development project in empty quarters along the international borders. The concession area overlaps within Arabian Oryx designated protected and have potential to cause damage to the local bio-diversity. Company conducted extensive environmental studies in advance to assess the impacts and implemented sound engineering practices and ecological conservation mitigation measures to reduce the bio-diversity risk to acceptable level.

The paper presents engineering and conservation activities undertaken in Greenfield oil development project that lies within environmentally sensitive area.
Improving HSE Culture and Leadership - How KNPC is Pursuing HSE Excellence
Authors: Arendt Steve , Alsaleh N. , Suarez O.
Published: April 2018

If a company wants to sustain continuous improvement in process safety and HSE, or to reach for Operational Excellence, it must address improvement of culture throughout the organization from CEO to field operations/maintenance. This paper compares the strengths and weaknesses of safety culture frameworks. The Center for Chemical Process Safety made process safety culture an official process safety management element when it published its Risk Based Process Safety Guidelines. Embedded in that element chapter were the key work practices to establish a management system to nurture process safety culture and 12 essential features of a good culture. Over the past ten years, other organizations in several industries have proposed various frameworks to understand and assess safety culture. During that same period, ABS Group has performed over 40 culture evaluations of companies involving hundreds of facilities, tens of thousands of employees and contractors, across all global regions and ethnic cultures.

These evaluations have determined safety culture weaknesses and linked them as causal factors to actual company safety performance. These weaknesses represent the current "disease states" for these companies. In several cases, we were able to determine the historical disease pathways in which condition that influence culture were allowed to degrade over time. Moreover, we have seen how companies have adopted practical measures to prevent, mitigate, and recover from safety culture disease.

This paper will summarize practical means that senior executives, plant managers, engineers, and operating and maintenance staff can adopt to avoid safety culture disease. We will summarize the lessons from a number of case study evaluations, characterize common culture degradation patterns among these different companies and provide suggestions for vaccinating companies against future process safety culture disease. Our Kuwait National Petroleum Company co-author will describe the progress that KNPC is making to develop its HSE/process safety culture.
Tracking Corporate Stewardship of Environmental Services-Opportunities of Big Data Applications and Long Term Value
Authors: Wright Nigel H
Published: April 2018

The value of global environmental services may change by 30-50$billon depending upon global strategies of growth, and the degree of stewardship versus naked market forces. While corporations and governments claim holistic care and responsibility for environment in their publications, how is this accounted for and assured across assets portfolios? In the age of transparency, stock market analysts and the financial industry are seeking non-financial metrics as indicators for sustainable business profitability.

Maintenance and improvement of ecosystem functioning is fundamental to the sustainability of eco resources and value increase, while progressive deterioration (due to pollution erosion, loss and fragmentation) will devalue assets. The advent of "big data" in this global digital age opens up powerful new opportunities to investigate remotely the health status of environmental resources processes, over wide geographic areas. By smart integration of technologies and systematic "ground truthing" in critical areas, GIS linked data bases provide a powerful platform to evaluate the status of Eco services and the economic and wider value of eco services. A critique of the cutting edge techniques and future applications will be presented together with opportunities to share and unlock development barriers. The development of such tools provide a penetrating insight into the stewardship of land, coastal and marine resources and "live" metrics of changing values.

Transparency demands around the globe will lead to government to holds companies accountable for stewardship of national assets. Both the public and private sectors will be increasingly required to maintain proper records of the value of environmental assets, and rectify losses or deteriorations.

Cutting edge insights into key sectors (finance, insurance, energy, shipping) will highlight how such data could be applied to benchmarking, assessing risks of future activities and the distillation of the financial exposure from legacy assets and pollution events. Ultimately, when owners finally decide to divest or undertake mergers and acquisitions past stewardship will feature in environmental due diligence, the bottom line and global reputation.

Today, multinational companies (from a wide spectrum of industries) play a significant role in shaping the environmental guardianship of the planet's resources. Scientifically sound corporate reporting including the eco services balance sheet (with defined debt and profit) need to be standardised, in order to be truly valuable in responsible decision making. Furthermore, our understanding of ecological capacity, robustness and the criticality of thresholds (which may cause irreversible change) need to be expanded.
Practical Application of Free Prior Informed Consent
Authors: Grobler Jan Harm
Published: April 2018

Large development projects in certain parts of the world can positively or adversly affect Indigenous Peoples who hold specific rights for the protection of their cultures, traditional ways of life and special connections to lands and waters. Without proper engagement and cultural considerations, Indigenous Peoples may be alienated and marginalized from decision making resulting in fractured and difficult relations or a lost social license to operate. These vulnerabilities have given rise to the concept of Free Prior Informed Consent (‘FPIC'), which is premised upon a pre-requisite to engage in dialogue with local Indigenous communities and come to a joint agreement on the way forward in project implementation.

Shell developed its FPIC position statement in 2016 which was made public April 2017 through the Shell Sustainability Report. Years before developing its position statement, Shell had already established various internal requirements for projects and assets to manage any potential impacts on Indigenous Peoples. However, in developing its public position statement, Shell saw this as an opportunity to strengthen the foundation for the practical implementation of FPIC. Shell's journey towards the adoption of FPIC provides useful insights for organisations interested in establishing policies aimed at Indigenous Peoples while taking into account the realities of practical, on-the-ground implementation.

This paper focuses on the drivers for making the public statement; the process undertaken to develop it; the drivers for linking it to the International Finance Corporation's Performance Standards; and a summary of tools within Shell that help with the practical implementation of FPIC, notably the ‘Community Feedback Mechanism’; the Impact Assessment Process; and Agreement Making.
Land Access and Resettlement: Working with Government and Oil & Gas Partners to Develop a Common Framework for Land Access
Authors: Pollard Magali , Muyobo Marion
Published: April 2018

In order to standardize the approach to long-term land acquisition and resettlement in the project areas, the three Joint Venture Partners of a petroleum field to be developed in Uganda in collaboration with the local authorities have formulated a Land Acquisition and Resettlement Framework (LARF).

This LARF document proposes a voluntary and consistent approach that is compliant with national legislation, international standards and in particular the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) Performance Standards 5 on Involuntary Resettlement and Land Acquisition, and best practices to further safeguard against social risks.

The process began in May 2014 and the document consolidation was facilitated by establishing the first interministerial Resettlement Advisory Committee (RAC). Following the endorsement of the LARF in December 2016, the RAC is actively monitoring and advising the partners on the development of projects. For each project component, local resettlement committees are set-up at district and village level in order to build capacity and enhance a participative approach at all levels.

The main outcome was a common goal which is "To secure long term access to land to enable the project to be developed and operated, while addressing displacement impacts and enhancing development impacts by improving the livelihoods and standard of living of Project Affected Persons". This LARF document looks at the twelve key principles which are; 1) Displacement to be avoided and minimised where possible, 2) Resettlement to be integrated into overall project planning, 3) Compliance with laws, standards and policies (corporate, national and international), 4) Active and informed stakeholder participation, 5) Cultural appropriateness to be applied, 6) Publicly disclosed cut-off date to be used, 7) Compensation to be based on full replacement cost, 8) Comprehensive resettlement assistance package to be applied, 9) Informal land rights to be recognized, 10) Vulnerable people to be provided with targeted assistance, 11) Grievance mechanism to be established, and 12) An appropriate monitoring and evaluation to be undertaken.

The development of the LARF was a stepping stone for the Government of Uganda when drafting in 2017 the first National Land Acquisition Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy. The participative approach in the development of a common framework is of interest to all who have to deal with various stakeholders including Government to ease and standardize ways of working on sensitive issues while remaining within the remits of the Legislative framework. In addition this process can also be applied in other countries because of the foundation of its purpose and will be useful for the petroleum sector to extractives sector and beyond.
Mission to End Emission: Flare Minimisation and Energy Conservation by Process Optimisation in NGL Fractionation Facility
Authors: Shathar Sevideen Abdul , Bakthavachsalam Venugopal , Ramakrishnan Bala Murugan , Singh Anand
Published: April 2018

This paper highlights the various process optimisation initiatives carried out in ADNOC Gas Processing Natural Gas Liquids fractionation facility to minimise Flaring and conserve Energy thereby reducing the emissions to the Environment. Capabilities of existing assets were exploited or optimally utilized to achieve superior Energy and flaring performance with significant reduction in Greenhouse gas emissions.

Below are the list of various optimization initiatives that were completed. Flare Minimization Initiatives Optimization of Molecular sieve units. Optimization of cover gas in Acid Gas Flare. Optimization of purge gas in High Pressure Flare. Swapping of purge media from fuel gas to Nitrogen in Low Pressure Flare.Energy optimization initiatives Maximization of Train throughput with Single refrigeration compressor. Optimization of power in Boil off Gas recovery systems. Optimization of steam in ADIP solvent Regeneration systems. Optimization of power in LPG Feed Systems.

Post implementation of these initiatives, flaring was reduced by 28% and Energy savings realised was upto 6%. These initiatives were pursued and accomplished by in-house team with zero capital reducing CO2 emissions by 131,000 tons/annum with an impressive cost savings of $8.3 million per annum. The benefits are sustainable throughout the life cycle of the project.

This paper presents the best practices adopted for maximum or optimum utilization of the capabilities of existing assets considering the current and design scenarios to achieve superior flaring and Energy performance with outstanding emission reductions. All these were achieved totally by the efforts of inhouse team boosting the morale and enhancing the mindset of staff to look beyond good practices. These initiatives have high potential for transferability across oil and gas industry.
From Net Environmental Benefit Analysis to Spill Impact Mitigation Assessment SIMA
Authors: Taylor Peter M. , Cramer Martin A. , Cox Robert T.E. , Santner Richard
Published: April 2018

A key objective for any oil spill response effort is to minimize the impacts to ecological, socio-economic and cultural resources at risk. To that end, the contingency planners and incident managers have traditionally utilized a formal or informal Net Environmental Benefit Analysis (NEBA) for selecting the most appropriate response option(s) to minimize spill impacts and promote recovery. The processes used to conduct a NEBA have varied considerably between industry operators, though the outcomes in terms of response strategy development have been similar. This variation in NEBA approaches can lead to challenges with communicating the underlying basis of response strategies to stakeholders. The oil industry published updated guidance in 2015 to explain the general principles of the NEBA process and facilitate stakeholder involvement. However, with industry's increasing reliance on NEBA to enhance the transparency of response strategy development, a consistent methodology for conducting formal NEBAs was required. In response to the above issue key industry associations collaborated on developing a qualitative NEBA methodology that was renamed Spill Impact Mitigation Assessment (SIMA). This methodology is designed to give a consistent approach to larger or higher consequence oil spill scenarios, where multiple spill response options are being considered and a formal SIMA/NEBA is warranted. Several industry spill response specialists and an independent expert participated in this project, resulting in the development of ‘Guidance on Implementing Spill Impact Mitigation Assessment’. The SIMA methodology is described, representing a tool that identifies the response option(s) that will best mitigate the overall impacts of an oil spill.
High Profile Tour; A Powerful Tool in Enhancing Well-Being Conditions of the Workforce
Authors: Boucif Mustapha Nasr-Eddine , Kuwair Majid Ali , El-Chaib Mohamad , Pagar Dinesh , Thomas John Bradley
Published: April 2018

The strongest influence on the workforce within most organizations is "the message from the top." To further demonstrate the company and its contractor's commitment to improve Welfare, a formal program for Welfare engagement with workforce known as the "High profile Welfare tour" was launched.

High-Visibility Welfare Tours are Labor Camp visits by site management team from both contractors and the company to maintain a "see, hear, and feel" approach towards Welfare and to demonstrate their commitment. The Camp visits are innovative because they go beyond the traditional "Welfare Meeting" between clients and contractors by taking management directly to the camps to engage in direct and personal conversations with labors concerning Welfare issues. Instead of reading, or hearing second hand, about Welfare issues, the message is delivered directly from managers to labors. Additionally, complaints or suggestions are raised directly from labors to managers; hence developing a perfect 360° degree communication between the labors and the site management.

Main objectives are to: Demonstrate leadership and commitment by Company and Contractors site management to welfare.Encourage informal discussion between site management and Labors.Identify areas for welfare improvement.Assist in resolving outstanding welfare issues.Follow up and feeding the welfare committee with issues and ensure engagement for timely close-out of arising action.Elevate the level of communication with site and Project management for better understanding and adequate implementation of welfare related issues.Discuss and resolve any emerging issues that are welfare related.Improve moral of employeesDemonstrate our Cuture of Caring

These tours are organized every other week to maintain contact between the labors and their management and to insure a continual improvement of the welfare conditions. Even though we accommodate more than seven thousand workers from different nationalities and different culture and background in four different camps on ZIRKU Island in Abu Dhabi, UAE on the project, we have managed to tackle all the welfare issues on a timely manner and improve significantly their living conditions, as well moral of employees, and didn't receive any major complaint from the labors since we started the program, which resulted into positive mental health.
Eliminate Risk of Dropped Object during Pipe Drifting Operations Drift Catcher Sub
Authors: Karim Islam Khaled , Hammadi Majid Al , Hammadi Yousef Al , Vargas Mario , Khalil Tarek , Dakroury Ahmed Ibrahim , Hajeri Saeed Al , Behiry Rami Essam , Abdelhalim Khaled
Published: April 2018

Manual drifting of drill pipes from the derick constitutes a potentially serious risk from dropped objects. When drifting in the derrick, traditionally rig crews manually place the drift in the carrier on the bails and transport it to the Derrickman who will usually be around 90ft above the rig floor. He then has to retrieve it and place it in the drill pipe. When the drill pipe is picked up, the drift falls out of the bottom tool joint and the Roughneck retrieves it to begin the process again.

There is a potential dropped object risk every time for the Derrickman if he mishandles the drift and if it falls toward the rig floor and potentially strikes a member of the rig personnel. This paper will detail the risk of manual drifting in the derick and also present a novel alternative method using a drift catcher sub that eliminates the dropped objects hazard completely – while also saves significant operational time when utilized.
Dropped Objects - The Journey to Elimination
Authors: Clarke Andrew
Published: April 2018

Dropped objects are a risk on all drilling operations contributing to a significant number of incidents, numerous fatalities and main high potential incidents. This paper explains what has been done to address this unacceptable risk including the collaborative development of DROPS Recommended Practice, incident review boards and integrated assurance programmes.
Embedding Learnings from Serious Incidents into Drilling Operations
Authors: Tayab Muhammad R.
Published: April 2018

Oil & Gas industry, by nature of its operations, creates a hazardous working environment therefore over the years the industry has developed safe systems (procedural & design) to eliminate or minimise risks. Despite these initiatives often incidents occur resulting in serious injuries, release of gases, equipment damage and other losses. ADCO has established a comprehensive system to reduce both the number and severity of incidents as a part of its HSE Management System which was based on root causes of incidents and embedding learning into work planning. Since 2010, ADCO Drilling has increased its operations and activities significantly in terms of number of rigs, drilled wells and associated services. During the period approximately 500 incident events, including no work related, were recorded, resulting in injuries (300) of varying natures, vehicle (81), property damage (77) and releases of gas (12) & spillages (13) events. It resulted in 104 recordable injuries, 30 vehicle crashes and 10 well control events. Repetitive gap in the implementation of HSEMS required out of the box approach to embed the learning into drilling programme to reduce incidents.

Over 200 Drilling incident investigation root causes and findings were analysed and effectiveness of HSEMS implementation and identification of HSE performance risks were assessed. Gaps in identification of worksite/ job hazards, work planning, leadership, monitoring & inspection and communication accounted for 60% of root causes of incidents. In 2015, barrier analysis for incident event sub type basis was done considering root causes and associated findings and learning from the incident was mapped with barriers in conjunction with risk assessment. The scheme was implanted in 2016 and incident trends, root causes and findings are discussed in this paper. The strengthening of barriers was implemented and there reduction in number of incidents was noted despite increase in rig fleet and exposure to risks. Despite the scheme being in initial stages, it has showed significant potential in incident reduction.
Real World Spill Response Optimisation
Authors: Gibbons Simon
Published: April 2018

There is significant value in understanding the detail around potential events, which could occur as a result of a pipeline release. Modelling of spills can provide opportunity to optimize response, improve response time and effectiveness and reduce environmental impact. Such work provides real cost benefits.

Oil spill modelling tools have been developed to help companies storing hazardous materials to better evaluate where the liquids might go and to assess their interactions within the environment. Predictive simulations on these processes can provide operators with the means to more effectively respond to an incident. Different tools exist to make predictions for overland migration, movement of liquids in surface waters or its fate and transport through the vadose and saturated zones of underlying soils.

The question is will these plans actually assist in a response or will the responders always need to think on their feet and make calls in the field based on limited observations and under challenging conditions?

This paper will outline the principles of the modelling approaches and sets out why the availability of high quality input data is now able to support detailed models of the fate of these liquids. To highlight why model outputs used in response plans can be trusted the paper will then present two real world examples from the same operator. In one instance, an attempted theft led to the contamination of an area of ground, which required remediation. Modelling was used to identify the plausible extent of contamination so that an appropriate investigation could be undertaken and the correct area of contaminated soils removed. In the second example, a third party impact on the same buried pipeline led to a release of kerosene into a nearby stream. In this example, responders were equipped with maps presenting model simulations, which illustrated the potential extent of the oil in the stream. The responders were able to station recovery systems rapidly and in the right locations. Without the simulation plans the extent and environmental impact of the spill would have been much more significant.

The operator's response plans have stood up to two very different incidents and in both cases were supported by output from a range of modelling simulations. The response has undoubtedly saved significant costs by enabling the operator to respond quickly and appropriately to both events. To help in the use of the data generated through the modelling the client also has access to the model outputs via a web-GIS system. This technology allows the office, responders, emergency services and regulators to access all of the relevant information at a location to effectively manage the response. This is now being enhanced further with addition of thermal radiation modelling to account for risks should the released product be ignited.
Asset Integrity in the Offshore Construction Industry - Adopting the Operators’ Best Practices
Authors: Passarella S.
Published: April 2018

The analysis of root causes of the latest Major Accidents in the Oil&Gas industry has shown that there is little correlation between having and religiously following an effective Occupational Health & Safety Management System and the assurance of Asset Integrity. While Asset Integrity may be considered as a well-established framework in offshore drilling and production operations, this is not yet the case for typical offshore construction operations.

Saipem has developed an Asset Integrity Management Model, based on internationally recognized standards, aimed at controlling the risks related to Major Accident Hazards posed by the offshore operations in the company portfolio, including offshore construction.

The model identifies the Safety Case as the key process to analyse Major Accident Scenarios. The Safety Case identifies barriers in place to prevent escalation to major events and, when failing to prevent, at least to mitigate final consequences. Barriers entail a mix of three main types of Safety Critical Elements: Equipment, Competences and Procedures.

While the identification and assurance of Performance Standards of (Safety Critical) Equipment is systematic and supported by a consolidated approach, the same cannot always be said for Safety Critical Competences and Safety Critical Procedures, due to their "soft" nature.

As for Equipment, where key parameters outline the expected performance (e.g. functionality, reliability/availability, vulnerability), for Safety Critical Competences and Safety Critical Procedures an equivalent set shall be established.

Another major challenge is posed by setting meaningful and effective KPIs to monitor all key elements that contribute to building Asset Integrity. Examples are Performance Standards of Safety Critical Elements, Management of Change, Procurement & Design of Equipment, Document Management, Communication & Awareness.

Asset Integrity lagging and leading indicators are available in the literature, especially for Process Safety, but in the field of offshore construction, this is not the case.

Saipem is pioneering the implementation of an Asset Integrity approach onboard Offshore Construction Vessels, addressing in particular non-marine Safety Critical Equipment, Competences and Procedures.
Offshore Medical Evacuation - The Malaysian Experience
Authors: Sivapirathoshan Shanty
Published: April 2018

A study was carried out on the current trends of medical evacuations from offshore oil and gas installations in Malaysia to tertiary medical care provided at a tertiary hospital onshore. The purpose of this study is to investigate the reasons for the increase of offshore medical evacuations in Malaysia, how incidents involving workers can be reduced, how to ensure that workers truthfully answer their Health Declaration forms before they go offshore and are the medical personnel offshore adequately prepared to deal with medical emergencies.

Information was obtained from medical evacuations done for an oil and gas company in Malaysia over the last five (5) years from 2013 to 2017. An analysis was done to distinguish the different types of medical evacuations (medical illness or injury related). A review of published literature was also done to supplement the data obtained.

It was discovered that about eighty percent (80%) of the all medical evacuations were illness related and not as a result of injuries. Infectious and lifestyle diseases were found to be the main cause of illness related medical evacuations. These findings show that the majority of medical evacuations are not occupational related. It can be concluded that the number of medical evacuations could have been reduced if Fitness to Work medical examinations were done in accordance to the set guidelines and workers had truthfully filled out their Health Declaration forms.

This paper will increase the body of knowledge on medical evacuations in the oil and gas industry. It will also encourage other research to be done and papers to be written on medical evacuations in the Asian region.
A Solid Response to External Stakeholders Requires a Solid Internal Organisation
Authors: Luca C. W. , de Koning S. A.
Published: April 2018

How does a company organise itself to deal with societal challenges? Non-Technical Risks or those challenges and opportunities related to external stakeholders, have become a normal part of business. These risks are expressions of the concerns, expectations and wishes that stakeholders place upon companies. This is compounded by the external environment becoming more complex and demanding, with a myriad of regulations and with many, often contradicting or challenging expectations. If not well-managed, non-technical risks cause significant project delays, budget overruns and/or reputation damage.

Therefore, for a consistent and equivocal response to external stakeholders, a company needs to streamline its internal organisation.

This paper discusses the way Shell re-aligned its internal organisation to give proper balance to technical, commercial and external considerations in investment and operational decision making. This required management taking full accountability for non-technical risk integration. And, in support, the External Relations department was assigned the responsibility to coordinate and align non-technical risks across the many non-technical functions and to integrate with the technical and commercial teams. The existing risk management process was used for timely identification, assessment, quantification, prioritisation and mitigation of non-technical risks, and full integration in decision making processes.

The key to success is to remain focused on creating well-informed dialogue amongst business decision makers. If that happens, mitigating actions will be resourced properly and will be taken in a timely and proactive manner; investment decisions will be taken with a realistic view on non-technical risks. In the case of Shell, the necessary processes and tools already existed in the company, and only needed better application from a non-technical risk perspective. The real challenge however, was to create a cultural change across the company to: Improve the cooperation between the various non-technical functions.Align these functions with capital project and operational decision making.Ensure managers and decision makers properly value and balance non-technical considerations with technical and commercial ones.

The journey of improving non-technical risk integration is primarily one of changing the company culture. It creates an organisation that is more humble, transparent and flexible in responding to societal challenges and expectations, and, importantly, it creates a company that is better adapted to the demands of society and, as a result, leads to better business outcomes.
Experimental Investigation of Bio-Degradable Environmental Friendly Drilling Fluid Additives Generated from Waste
Authors: Al-saba M. T. , Amadi K. W. , Al-Hadramy K. O. , Dushaishi M. F. , Al-Hameedi A.. , Alkinani H..
Published: April 2018

With the increase in the environmental awareness across the oil and gas industry along with the strict environmental regulations related to drilling waste management, different practices have been applied to reduce the impact of drilling waste on the environment such as slim-hole drilling, effective solid control equipment, and environmental friendly drilling fluid additives. The main objective of these techniques is to reduce the volume of the disposed contaminated drill cuttings, therefore, reducing both impact on the environment and the cost related to drilling waste handling.

This paper investigates the feasibility of using bio-degradable waste as an environmental friendly drilling fluid additives. A comprehensive experimental evaluation of different bio-degradable waste materials has been carried out to investigate their effectiveness in improving the different properties of water-based drilling fluids. These waste materials, which were prepared in-house, include but not limited to grass, corncobs, sugar cane, pomegranate peel, soya bean peel, etc. The additives were evaluated at different concentrations and mixtures and the various drilling fluids properties were measured, such as filtration, pH, and rheological properties. The filtration properties were evaluated using the standard low pressure low temperature API filter press.

The results showed that some materials such as soya bean peel powder reduced the fluid loss up to 60% and improved the yield point and the gel strength up to 330 % and 640% with minor to no effect on the plastic viscosity, suggesting the applicability of using both additives as a rheology modifier and a filtration control agent. Other materials such as henna and tamarind gum outer reduced the pH dramatically, suggesting their applicability in being used as pH control agents, especially when drilling through cement.

These promising results showed a good potential for these environmental friendly drilling fluid additives (EFDFA) that were generated from waste material to be used as an alternative for some of the toxic materials currently used in the industry. Using these additives, will contribute towards reducing both; the impact on the environment as well as the overall cost of drilling fluids and drilling waste handling.
Addressing Human Performance in the Workplace through a Multidisciplinary Approach
Authors: Irikannu Ugochi
Published: April 2018

There have been many changes in the oil and gas industry in the past few years. An organization's ability to change has become a major competitive advantage. Employees must remain flexible, agile and patient to get through the changes effectively and remain productive. Human Performance is the way people, culture, equipment, work systems and processes interact as a system. The Human performance model can be used to address fatigue and stress, factors of human performance that can impact workforce safety. A workshop was developed for the workforce using SMEs from Medical, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and Employee wellness. This approach was used to: 1. Explain the connections between fatigue, stress, human performance and safety 2. Present physical and psychological wellbeing resources available in the workplace: Resilience training, EAP, and Wellness programs 3. Provide personal strategies for improving wellbeing.
Raising the Bar for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Management in the Oil and Gas Industry
Authors: Gray Anna
Published: April 2018

IPIECA provides leadership on environmental issues for the oil and gas (O&G) industry through anticipating challenges, enabling improvements and informing members on key issues; a key platform for this is the use of training workshops, such as the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES) Peer-to-Peer Workshop Series.

The BES Peer-to-Peer Workshop Series is highly beneficial for oil and gas industry practitioners. The platform allows increased awareness, uptake and operationalization of the BES approach and good practices by oil and gas companies, thus enabling companies to improve performance. Attendees receive comprehensive up-to-date training in BES; awareness of latest expectations, good practices, tools and practical examples associated with BES management in the oil and gas; ideas on how to build the business case for BES action within their organisations; benefits of insights around shared perspectives – challenges, opportunities and experiences from industry representatives; and, excellent networking opportunity with like-minded people in O&G industry.

The workshop has been held in Paris, Houston and Bangkok, reaching 150+ individuals and 30+ oil and gas companies. To measure workshop success, IPIECA survey attendees. We evaluate whether BES management awareness has increased, participant critique of the workshop and, participant uptake of BES approaches and IPIECA guidance. To-date, results gathered from post-workshop surveys have been very positive. Attendees particularly highlight the quality of the workshop materials and the opportunity to hear case studies from industry professionals.

The training workshops are a unique forum for industry outreach, particularly in regions that have only more recently begun developing their O&G resources. The next Peer-to-Peer Workshop is planned for May 2018, in South Africa.
Development and Testing a New Surface Drilling Blow Out Preventer Bop Activation Technology
Authors: Affleck Michael , Gilleland Monty
Published: April 2018

When drilling and experiencing a well control event, the decision to either function the shear and seal BOP with pipe in the hole or evacuate the rig before shutting in the well is a complex one. Many human and technical influences come into play in a highly time dependent, often escalating situation. At this time pressured moment the crew concerned fully appreciates that the consequences of their actions are likely to be significant.

A new BOP activation technology has been developed and tested to assist the operations team in making better (safer) decisions at this critically unsafe time. The paper will explain the core system components and detail the testing methodology adopted to facilitate field introduction of this new technology in Saudi Arabia.

At its core, a bespoke safety critical wireless communications solution has been developed which when coupled to robust electrical control and hydraulic power unit hardware, provides a rig upgrade solution when the planned well conditions warrant. It should be noted that the system is a supplementary well control technology designed to operate alongside existing, conventional BOP control systems as opposed to other attempted methods that seek to replace reliable, proven and heavily regulated equipment. The technology is novel in that no technology has been previously developed and tested that allows well shut-in following rig evacuation on land or jack-up rig installations.

Significant learnings captured during the development project, including the testing phase will be shared, with a look forward to full operational deployment considerations such as integration with existing rig technology.
Implementing IOGP 423 - HSE Management Guidelines for Working together in a Contract Environment
Authors: Iversen L. , Faugstad O.
Published: April 2018

Contractor HSE Management is a vital process and aligning our efforts is a benefit to all.

The 2017 IOGP guide for HSE management throughout a contract lifecycle (IOGP Report 423) place further emphasis on the collaboration between clients and contractors, and their respective responsibilities – including subcontracting; and focus on risk management and assurance mechanisms.

Since the publication of 423, an IOGP taskforce has been working on materials to support and facilitate implementation in the Oil & Gas and Energy industry, and to assist with coordination and facilitation of local country implementation workshops. Norwegian members in the taskforce, agreed to pilot the Norwegian implementation.

This paper summarizes the material prepared by the taskforce for global implementation, and the planning and key learnings from the Norwegian implementation efforts. Our experience is that stakeholder management requires special attention. In addition, we discuss the specific challenges in the Norwegian context, such as tripartite collaboration and language. This experience is worth sharing for a successful implementation in other countries.

The paper also gives some insight into the IOGP guidance content and purpose, supporting contractor HSE management throughout the contracting lifecycle. We will discuss how the IOGP Report 423 provides a risk-based approach, aiming to improve contractor HSE management in alignment with the current Operating Management System (OMS) framework. We discuss the way forward, and propose how an implementation plan can be developed, including; use of the methodology, carry out capability assessments, establish contract requirements and assess and plan training.

This paper concludes that the use of IOGP taskforce practical implementation guidance on various 423 topics, will eventually lead to clients and contractors working together, and help to meet the vision that the industry implements and use the 423 guidance with minimum deviations, hence working more safely and saving millions. the IOGP Taskforce agreed not only to deliver the updated guidance, but also paid special attention and time on implementation. However, the implementation journey has proved to be demanding, as you can read throughout this paper.
Sustainable Corrective Actions - Is SMART Good Enough?
Authors: Perkinson Larry
Published: April 2018

Objective

The acronym, SMART, has long been used as a measure of quality for recommendations, not only within the context of incident investigations, but in audits or general problem solving methodologies. This presentation explores the applicability of SMART and how a more sustainable method must be employed to ensure recommendations for significant incidents are not only effective, but designed to integrate with existing systems and include validation KPIs to track their implementation.

Methods & Procedures

The use of the SMART acronym was reviewed in the context of more recent research. While the components of SMART remain important, even recommendations that meet SMART requirements are often subject to failure for many reasons. Many companies fail to tie identified root causes directly to the recommendation that is supposed to address them. A format was developed, along with investigation quality assurance processes, that require the basis for the root cause (the finding that produced it) to be directly addressed by the recommendation.Recommendations often address only local failures (this department, this rig, this platform, this incident, etc.). The format also requires asking key questions to determine if the root cause is "generic" in nature and should be expanded to address possible wider deficiencies (embedded in the work systems of the organization as a whole).Since a recommendation is simply a form of risk control, a review of the types of risk controls was completed. Then an internal company review was performed to determine the types of systems that were in already place to support similar types of risk controls. From this review a list of risk control assurances was developed with which to integrate and to evaluate each recommendation for sustainability. The likelihood of a recommendation being sustainable could be directly related to the number and level of assurances that were embedded within the recommendation.KPIs that show the percentage of recommendations completed on time are often not indicative of the successful implementation of a recommendation, but simply the desire to "close" the recommendation for the sake of achieving a KPI. A system of KPI validation was developed to address this issue that looks at the success of the recommendation over a period of 18 months to assure sustainability.

Results & Conclusions

While the specific aspects of SMART are still important, even with all the attributes of SMART in place, the model demonstrates how corrective actions/recommendations using only the SMART acronym can still be highly likely to fail. The use of quality assurance processes to review investigation and audit reports and ensure that recommendations address the respective bases for root causes and include risk control assurances has significantly improved the quality and sustainability of recommendations.
Momentum correlations as signature of sonic Hawking radiation in Bose-Einstein condensates
Authors: Fabbri Alessandro , Pavloff Nicolas
Published: April 2018

We study the two-body momentum correlation signal in a quasi one
dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of a sonic horizon.
We identify the relevant correlation lines in momentum space and compute
the intensity of the corresponding signal. We consider a set of
different experimental procedures and identify the specific issues of
each measuring process. We show that some inter-channel correlations, in
particular the Hawking quantum-partner one, are particularly well
adapted for witnessing quantum non-separability, being resilient to the
effects of temperature and/or quantum quenches.
Görme Yetersizliği Olan Lisans Öğrencilerinin Sınıf İçi Ölçme-Değerlendirme Süreçlerinin İncelenmesi
Authors: KAMIŞ Ömer , DEMİR Ergül
Published: April 2018

Bu araştırmanın amacı,
2015/2016 eğitim öğretim döneminde Ankara ilindeki üniversitelerin çeşitli
fakülte ve bölümlerinde öğrenim gören ve görme yetersizliğine sahip
öğrencilerin sınıf içi ölçme-değerlendirme süreçlerini öğretim elemanı ve
öğrenci görüşlerine göre incelemektir. Araştırma nitel araştırma yaklaşımıyla ve
betimsel fenomenoloji deseninde yürütülmüştür. Çalışma grubunun
oluşturulmasında kartopu örnekleme kullanılmıştır. Çalışma grubunu 17 görme yetersizliği
olan öğrenci ile 3 öğretim elemanı oluşturmuştur. Araştırmanın verileri, yarı
yapılandırılmış görüşme formu ile toplanmıştır. Verilerin analizinde betimsel
analiz yöntemi kullanılmıştır. Araştırmanın öne çıkan bulgularına göre, görme yetersizliğine
sahip öğrenciler ölçme-değerlendirme süreçlerinde zaman, uygulama, soru ve
materyal anlamında güçlükler yaşamaktadır. Görme yetersizliğine sahip
öğrencilerin öğretim elemanlarından ve üniversite yönetiminden çeşitli
beklentileri vardır. Görme yetersizliği olan öğrencilerin ölçme-değerlendirme
süreçlerinde güçlükler yaşadığı, bu güçlüklerin öğrencilerin görme düzeylerine
göre farklılaştığı, bu öğrencilerin normal öğrenciler gibi değerlendirilmemesi
gerektiği ve görme yetersizliği olan öğrencilerin gerçek başarılarını
gösterebilmeleri için ölçme-değerlendirme süreçlerinde bu güçlükleri giderici ve
nitelikli önlemler alınması gerektiği sonucuna varılmıştır.