bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Outreach and Communication; Phase Two of the Joint Industry Project on Oil Spill Response
Authors: Nicoll A. , Cox R. 
Published: March 2016

Abstract
Following the Montara (2009) and Macondo (2010) oil spill incidents, the international oil industry has undertaken an unprecedented collective effort to apply the lessons from these and other oil spill incidents to improve the management and technical aspects of oil spill response. Over the last three years the IOGP/IPIECA Joint Industry Project (JIP) on Oil Spill Response has overseen 19 specific projects to enhance knowledge and understanding of good practice across a wide range of related technical disciplines. The legacy of this effort includes a comprehensive library of peer reviewed outputs ranging from scan/ glance technical overview products through the broad suite of 24 Good Practice Guides, and also includes a number of deep study-level technical papers and reports.
The challenge today is to inculcate this vast body of technical guidance into the awareness of decision makers through a coordinated programme of communication and outreach. The overarching aim is to raise levels of knowledge and understanding relating to the tools and techniques of oil spill response amongst opinion formers and decision-makers. In so doing, industry can overcome barriers that currently restrict / prevent access to use all available response tools, based on a scientific assessment of the most appropriate response strategies.
Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL) is working with industry on initiatives designed to socialise these outputs within a broad range of stakeholders. Key steps on this journey include: Stakeholder Mapping: understanding the organisations where exposure to the new suite of technical outputs will offer the greatest strategic reward. OSRL has analysed a wide range of stakeholder organisations and rated them according to their respective influence to differentiate organisations that only require a passive awareness from those where coordinated engagement offers the greatest opportunity to influence decision makers.Influence Multipliers: Seeding knowledge and understanding from within, through expanding the network of technical experts and advocates from within Oil Spill Response Organisations (OSROs) and other aligned organisations in the responder community. This strategy can also be used by member oil companies of OSRL and the JIP to reach deeper into these organisations to where oil spill response is not a core discipline.Leverage existing forums: Ensure the JIP outputs are firmly embedded in the activities of the IMO / IPIECA Global Initiative (GI) and also make more effective use of national and regional oil industry associations and other response community networks to give appropriate exposure to the JIP outputs.
This paper will discuss each of these ongoing initiatives and will highlight the successes that have been achieved and the challenges that remain.
Hammerfest LNG Plant in Norway - Significant Local Value Creation
Authors: Darell Holand Kari Mette , Rønning Ragnhild 
Published: March 2016

Abstract

Objective
Snøhvit is the first production facility for LNG in Europe, the world's northernmost LNG plant and the first offshore project in the Barents Sea. When the Norwegian Parliament passed the Snohvit Plan for Development and Operation (PDO) in 2002, Hammerfest was a town in recession and the population number was declining. This paper will address Statoil's approach to establishing business in Hammerfest, and discuss key success factors regarding how local value creation was achieved.

Methods
Close cooperation with the municipality and dialogue with civil society have been important activities all along since Statoil's establishment. The Impact Assessment process was carried out in 2001 to map potential environmental and socio-economic consequences of the Snøhvit development. During the construction phase a ripple effect study, which included follow up research on extended effects three years into operation (2010), was undertaken together with the municipality of Hammerfest and Finnmark County. This study covered issues like economic extended effects, community planning and social changes.

Results
As operator of Snøhvit and constructor of the largest ever industrial project in northern Norway, Statoil is now contributing significantly to creating value for local communities in the north of Norway. The decline has been turned around and Hammerfest municipality has now a steady growth. Schools have been refurbished, a culture centre has been built, infrastructure is updated and new properties are developed. Today there are 356 Statoil employees at the LNG facility with the majority of them living in Hammerfest. Reports on actual deliveries from suppliers in Northern Norway provide an example of the achievements: Goods and services worth NOK 1.8 bn were delivered in 2014 and suppliers hired a total of 649 persons in Hammerfest.
By establishing a supplier development program (LUNN) and engaging with suppliers through an industrial coordinator for northern Norway, Statoil has contributed to the development of the local supplier industry. Specific content in supplier contracts, such as a local office, opening for smaller vendors and alliances of vendors were important measures. Statoil is also a co-owner in a local business incubator situated in Hammerfest.

Novel/additive information
Management of expectations, requirements in contracts, close cooperation with the local authorities and engagement with civil society have been key to Statoil's success in the north. This paper will further describe important elements to achieving the success in creating value for the local communities.
Advanced Process Safety Barrier Management by Applying Proactive Incident Investigation to Failed or Impaired Barriers
Authors: Groot Arthur 
Published: March 2016

Abstract
This paper describes an approach to standardizing proactive incident investigation to failed or impaired barriers and risk management. Whilst many will agree that the Oil and Gas (O&G) and process industries have been very successful in improving occupational safety, improvements in process safety management are lagging. Process Hazard Assessments has become a recognised tool to assess process design and production operations around the world even though they have a tendency to concentrate on the design phase only, rather than considering all aspects of the integrity of operating systems in the total life cycle of the asset. In response, barrier management based on the BowTie model is being widely promoted in the O&G industry to understand operational risk in more detail and influence potential results. The structured approach of the BowTie forces an assessment of how well all initial threats are being controlled and how well prepared the organisation is to mitigate consequences should things start to go wrong in the total life cycle of the asset. It highlights the direct link between the controls (preventive and corrective) and the management systems. But how can risk based on the performance of these process safety barriers be managed? In general barriers are not fully reliable. They have common causes of failure (i.e. human factor, organisational deficiencies, etc.), there are paradigm shifts in barrier expectations (i.e.shallow water vs deep water drilling) and multiple barriers are required to assure to acceptance level of risk. In the event of a major process safety incident, the scenario is investigated in-depth and the failures of the barriers are analysed by utilising methods such as 5-why, TRIPOD, SCAT, etc. The lessons learned include optimising barriers and defining missing barriers. From a preventive point of view, however, it is even more important to investigate failed barriers individually as Tier 3 or Tier 4 incidents as defined in the API-754. This paper reviews the process and results of such an effort. The author has utilised this method for O&G operating companies and discusses the lessons learned from this experience. Based on the results from this application, it is shown that the BowTie method in combination with incident analyses on barriers can be adapted for understanding and monitoring barrier performance and how to influence barrier performance.
Cross-Matching Fitness-to-Work with Assignment to Work Location
Authors: Cauchi Gerald , Barbey Alex 
Published: March 2016

Abstract
An operational location health risk assessment (OL-HRA) tool has been created that the health and human resources departments of an oilfield services provider use to determine the health risk level of each operational location. Results are compared before and after systematic, coordinated implementation of the OL-HRA tool with respect to preventing incorrect assignments for an employee's fitness-to-work to a location's medical environment.
Fitness-to-work is managed by the company's health department, and assignment to work in the 85 countries where the company operates is managed by the human resources department.
Employees with potentially serious health/medical issues discovered during periodic fitness-to-work medical assessments are sometimes found to be unfit to work in assignments located offshore, on vessels, or even in office jobs located in remote locations or in locations where health care facilities are deemed to be substandard. These individuals are referred to as restricted 1 (R1). These individuals may, however, still be medically fit to work in locations where good-quality medical facilities are readily available.
Although it is evident that all vessels and offshore installations are by definition R1 locations, meaning that an R1 person cannot be assigned to work in these R1 locations, the vast majority of company operational locations around the world were not clearly identified as to whether they were R1 or non-R1 locations.
To ensure that employees with pre-existing health conditions could be assigned to adapted operational locations, it was deemed essential to develop a tool that could be used by both the health and human resources departments to assess the health risk level of each operational location.
The OL-HRA tool is used by each operational location's health, safety, and environment (HSE) manager and the company's approved health care professional to obtain a health risk level for the location.
Before the implementation of this OL-HRA tool and its systematic and coordinated use by the health and human resources departments, more than 1,000 R1 employees were assigned to R1 locations with an inappropriate medical environment for their specific health concerns.
The OL-HRA tool has not only improved management and assignment of employees who have a potentially serious health/medical issue, it has also decreased the number of hospitalizations and evacuations among high-mobility employees while reducing the company's health-related expenditures.
Hiring of Community Casual Workers: A Key Component of a Successful Entry Strategy With Communities in a Precarious Environment
Authors: Michel Olivier , Muyobo Marion , Leroy Anne-Sophie 
Published: March 2016

Abstract
Total E&P Uganda, present in the country since 2011 and partnering with the UK Company Tullow and the Chinese Company CNOOC, is operator of an oil exploration project located in the northern west area of the country. Exploration activities require daily interaction with rural and highly vulnerable communities which are sensitive to potential social destabilization of their environments. Given the large scale of the proposed oil development project, expectations amongst communities are high. This has led, among others, to demands for employment among populations likely to be directly affected by the project. However, obtaining jobs for ‘casual’ or unskilled workers is exposed to high potential for corruption and uncertainty. This vulnerable category of workers could be easily exploited and manipulated. The local hiring process is often an opportunity for local leaders to influence and maintain their dominant position locally.
Total E&P Uganda was, therefore, confronted by the following challenge: how to recruit, equitably and in a transparent manner, a limited number of people without skills in areas where hundreds of people could do the same job? Following dialogue with local stakeholders and internal reflection, Total E&P Uganda put in place a simplified application form for the registration of candidates. This was followed by a simple system of ballot box drawing of candidates. The drawing of candidates takes place publically, in the presence of potential candidates and various local stakeholders and is based on the principle of "first drawn, first served". The process of drawing candidates is carried out during the course of a morning. This process is perceived by communities as fair and transparent and is logistically simple to put in place by contractors under the supervision of Total E&P Uganda teams.
This approach reinforces the link with those communities that are the most directly affected by the presence of the operations. By providing temporary employment as a tangible compensation for disturbance, it is part of the first positive entry strategy with communities, among others. The approach relies on community values such as equal opportunities and transparency of information. There are immediate positive benefits for the community. The success is immediate with positive results while relying on important values within precarious societies such as equal opportunities for the entire community and the need for information.
Since February 2012 Total E&P Uganda, through its contractors, has supervised the temporary recruitment of more than 1,200 people. This recruitment strategy has been integrated into the subsidiary management system and is recommended in all contracts issued by the subsidiary.
Produced Water Management Under the Norwegian "Zero Harmful Discharge Regime" – Benefits With the Risk Based Approach
Authors: Steinar Nesse , Eimund Garpestad , Egil Dragsund 
Published: March 2016

Abstract
The "Zero harmful discharge regime" has been implemented on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) since the late 1990's, and has amongst other resulted in significant reduction of oil discharged with produced water. The current management strategy is to conduct Best Available Techniques (BAT) assessment for new fields/installations, assessing injection of produced water and adequate cleaning solutuions prior to discharge to sea.
The current regulative requirement is 30 mg/l oil-in-water (as a monthly average) and the Norwegian regulator has announced a possible stricter limit at 10-15 mg/l for new field developments. The Norwegian petroleum industry finds this an inappropriate requirement, which will deviate from the principle of a risk based approach, and imply costly solutions not aligned to the actual level of environmental risk.
This paper presents a holistic view on performance of produced water management on the NCS, including overview of solutions for all fields, with performance data and trends for the period 2009-2014, and discusses the benefit of continuing the management regime and regulation level of today.
Subsea Mechanical Dispersion, Adding to the Toolkit of Oil Spill Response Technology
Authors: Brandvik Per Johan , Davies Emlyn , Krause Daniel F. , Beynet Pierre A. , Agrawal Madhusuden , Evans Peter 
Published: March 2016

Abstract
The size distribution of oil droplets formed in subsea oil and gas blowouts is known to have strong impact on their subsequent fate in the environment. Fine droplets are frequently neutrally buoyant and within the full body of water they are available for biodegradation. Subsea Dispersion Injection (SSDI) is an integral part of achieving this goal, lowering the interfacial tension between the oil and water. However, despite their many advantages, the use of SSDI are limited both by the logistical constraints of deployment and legislative restrictions over its use. Adding to the toolkit of methods that achieve subsea dispersion without the use of chemicals would therefore enhance oil spill response capability.
There are other ways of reducing the effects of interfacial tension within the oil such as increasing the interfacial shear by introducing more turbulence within the rising oil plume. Using a combination of laboratory experimentation and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) we have explored the potential of three mechanisms – 1) a rotating bladed shearing mixer, 2) ultrasonic cavitation and 3) high pressure water jetting. Physical experiments were conducted at the SINTEF Tower Basin facility in Norway. A scaled-down oil plume of Oserberg blend (1 L/min) was subjected to shear using commercially available rotating and ultrasonic devices both normally supplied for industrial mixing applications and adapted for operation within the tank. Results were compared to chemically dispersed oil under the same conditions. CFD modelling of water jetting was conducted using the BP High Performance Computer facility adopting a Volume of Fluid (VOF) multiphase model with advanced turbulence modelling and automated mesh refinement. Boundary conditions were set to replicate, as close as practical, the dimensions and physical properties used in the tank experiments.
Results indicate that all three modes of increasing interfacial shear could be effective in dispersing oil. The ultrasonic device created a broad distribution of oil droplet sizes, spanning 10-100 μm in diameter whilst the mechanical shearing technique dispersed oil droplets into a narrower size distribution, centred on 16 μm. These values fall close to the droplet size of the same oil dispersed using chemicals of 70μm. Estimation of droplet sizes in the water jetting scenarios yielded values &lt;50 μm.
These tank scale experiments indicate that a new class of oil spill response technology may be possible using a mechanical device – Subsea Mechanical Dispersion (SSMD). The varieties of techniques that have been shown so far to be effective indicate that a range of devices may be designed and scaled to suit different oil spill scenarios and become a valuable addition to this class of response strategy.
Water and oil: Sustaining our Future?
Authors: Yagüe C. , Santamaría C. , del Estal É. , Marín E. 
Published: March 2016

Abstract
A responsible and reliable Oil & Gas Company has to consider water a strategic resource. Water management is essential for energy production. Consequently, we are committed to reducing water demand and impacts on freshwater in areas of water stress. Therefore, it was necessary to focus all the efforts on meeting the challenge of developing a centralized water management program.
The Repsol Water Tool (RWT) was developed to meet this challenge. It is grounded in an integrated methodology, based on the WBCSD Global Water Tool (GWT) and the GEMI Local Water Tool™ (LWT™) and adapted to our specific operational needs. This new tool identifies nine water-related risks and evaluates the major risk level in our operated production assets and industrial facilities considering internal and external water aspects. The internal indicators are the level of instrumentation or measurement; water usage such as sanitary, process and produced water; water treatment technologies; and water quality legal requirements and company standards, e.g. Environmental Performance Practices (EPP) for discharge limits in wastewater. The external parameters are the water availability and associated ecosystems of water sources and receiving water bodies; future water demand; regulatory and business risks; and social risks. All water data is collected and loaded into the RWT which then evaluates all water-related risks through the application of indicator scoring criteria.
Within the Company E&P Business, nine operated production assets which are located in five countries were evaluated in 2014. The results display very interesting conclusions due to the different characteristics of our site operations. The production assets evaluated are located in tropical, subtropical and temperate zones. These include operations onshore and offshore, jungle and poor vegetation regions, water scarcity and high water availability areas, high and low water supply areas, indigenous and local communities, where there may be environmental legal restrictions or no strict regulatory aspects. The main goal and deliverable has been the Company water improvement plan (2015-2020) focused on reducing water-related risks, managing water sources mitigating impacts on local communities and not incurring penalties.
The novelty of this approach is in the ability to facilitate decision making prioritization in investments. It improves operational efficiencies, preventing liabilities, influence in local communities, management of contingency plans and any other risk-mitigation measures.
Active Hearing Protection Device Provides Unique Possibilities for Hearing Research
Authors: Gjestland T. , Kvaløy O. , Tronstad T. V. , Melvær A. 
Published: March 2016

Abstract

Objectives/Scope
The objective of this research project is to study the connection between noise exposure and possible hearing damage. A key feature in the project is QUIETPRO, an active hearing protection device manufactured by Honeywell.

Methods, Procedures, Process
QUIETPRO is an in-the-ear hearing protection device, HPD. It features among other things a special test routine that is activated after the earplugs have been fitted into the ear canal. Improper insertion is detected. A warning signal is given unless sufficient protection has been verified. The noise levels at the eardrum and outside the earplug are logged continuously throughout the working day. The actual noise dose the user has been exposed to is calculated in real time, and an audible alarm signal is activated if the dose exceeds a pre-set limit. QUIETPRO also features an automatic hearing test that can be activated on demand for instance before and after a working day. The test is simple and fast (typically 2 minutes duration) and it is self-administered. Data from the hearing test together with stored noise exposure data is uploaded to a database at the end of the working day.

Results, Observations, Conclusions
The system has been used for some time at two Statoil offshore installations. Personnel exposed to especially high noise levels, typically 100-110 dBA and above (heli-deck crew and maintenance personnel doing sand blasting and needle picking) have been using QUIETPRO regularly. This paper will present examples of performance data and demonstrate how the exposure and audiometry data can be used to detect the onset of a hearing damage at a very early stage.

Novel/Additive Information
Never before have researchers had access to exposure data and audiometry data on a detailed day-to-day basis. This unique database containing very detailed individual hearing and noise exposure data will give us an exceptional opportunity to study exposure-response relationships.