On the results of the 2024 IOGP Members Congress

                                                                                                                                                                                     

              

 Dear Colleagues,

We were honoured to have Steve Rae as one of the keynote speakers at the 2024 IOGP Members’ Congress.  shared his experiences as a survivor of the tragic events of Piper Alpha, how we have collectively learned from those events and introduced practices like the Process Safety Fundamentals to prevent such tragedies from happening again.  Whilst we have come a long way since the tragic events of July 1988, the most recent IOGP safety data shows there were 5 fatalities in 2023 due to fires and explosions.

                                                                    Steve Norton, Safety Director at IOGP,United Kingdom 

  With this in mind, I reflect on the IOGP Process Safety Subcommittee and their face-to-face meeting earlier this month in London hosted by Shell.  Their mission is to keep improving our Process Safety practices and eliminate fatalities due to these events.  Highlights of the ongoing work discussed at the meeting include continuing to support adoption of the Process Safety Fundamentals, the implementation of the newly developed Process Safety in Design framework, developing guidance on Process Safety for Leaders and collaborating with industry partners on Process Safety leading indicators.  Thank you, Colin Winsor, for hosting the meeting and thank you Luca Decarli for your last meeting as Chair of the Subcommittee before handing over the reins to Felipe Carvalho.

Also this month the Wells Expert Committee (WEC) met in Brazil, kindly hosted by Petrobras, for their second face-to-face meeting of 2024. The purpose of the WEC is the prevention and mitigation of high consequence well control events. Learning is a major component of preventing future incidents and the WEC Meeting started with the Well Control Incident Workshop where Members share incidents to help us learn and improve and shape the future work programme of the WEC.  The next two days were spent reviewing progress in 2024 and planning for 2025.  The WEC has lots to be proud of in 2024, including the recent publishing of the IOGP Position Paper: Mud Gas Separator Design and Operating Recommendations and IOGP Report: Relief Well Planning for Subsea Applications.  Thank you to the whole WEC team and the Chair and Vice-Chair Paul Forman and Andre Michel Glowacz.

For my final reflection on the progress in November of the IOGP Safety Directorate, I had the pleasure of joining the Diving Operations Subcommittee and the International Diving Industry Forum (IDIF) at their meetings.  The group discussed important industry topics including alignment on Ship Husbandry and the elimination of SCUBA in this area, the IOGP Diving Recommended Practices and the training of saturation divers.  Thank you to Jord Lucas, the chair of the Subcommittee and the IDIF.

Over the last few months, I have reflected on the recent progress in the Safety Directorate by summarising the efforts of some of the people working together with the common ambition to eliminate fatalities in our industry.  I have the deepest respect for their expertise and their commitment to share and learn from each other.  I opened this month reflecting on Piper Alpha, which happened the year before I joined the energy industry, safety has come a long way in this time.  I think we all believe we have more to do and at the same time can be proud of the progress we are making.

Steve Norton,

Safety Director at IOGP, United Kingdom