HEALTH, SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT MAGAZINE for Gas & Oil industry
April 2011
It’s a
small step for the... page 4
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In this number:
14 THE MORNING CALL
Een voorschot op de
EVOLUTIE 18 HEAD-TO-HEAD Waar ligt nu feitelijk
de ‘competitive edge’ voor de
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AN ADVANCE ON EVOLUTION
bedrijven die zich in Nederland met
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DON’T BREAK ON...
28
de exploratie en productie van olie en gas bezighouden? Het antwoord ligt in het simpel stellen van de zaken: zoals ze zijn en hoe ze
zouden kunnen zijn. TRANSPARENCY IS A BLESSING
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TEAMWORK IS A MUST and more...
Jan-Willem van Hoogstraten
Foreword
THE GOOD THAT COMES OUT OF A NECESSARY EVIL The step from a nomadic hunter-gatherer society to an agrarian society was no easy one. Neither was it a voluntary one, but a leap to help the species survive. It demanded adaptability and empathy, plus a measure of flexibility. Structure was essential, and a system of rules to maintain it. It worked - through a process of trial and error - and humanity escaped being labelled an extinct species.
We now simply take for granted many of the more ubiquitous rules. However, the way we follow them is habitual, like second nature. This is a good thing, because it would take too much time and energy to think about them. And we shouldn’t waste time and energy on trivia, but save them for things that really matter. We call this routine. Doing what we have done thousands of times before without stopping to weigh up the pros and cons. Breathing. No point thinking about it. Cleaning your teeth. Would add nothing. Walking upstairs. Irrelevant. Reading a work permit. No real need. Performing a last-minute risk analysis. Perhaps we should, after all?
Rules. They come from all sides and everyone has their own ideas about them. The first social human already had some difficulty with them. In that respect, little has changed in tens of thousands of years. It is in our genes. But something else determined by these genes is the urge to survive, the desire to be able to return home in good health at the end of a working day. There’s a good reason for that.
On behalf of THE WAT GROUP
Pier van Spronsen
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MACHIAVELLI WROTE THE FAMOUS ‘DIVIDE AND CONQUER’. MURPHY HAS BEEN PROVED RIGHT MULTIPLE TIMES IN RISKY SITUATIONS, ESPECIALLY IN THE PETROCHEMICALS INDUSTRY. THE WORST OF BOTH MEN IS COMBINED IN A QUESTION I ONCE HEARD WHEN I WAS YOUNG: “IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE, WOULD YOU RATHER BE DEAF OR BLIND?”
HA
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ARMONIZATION IT CAN ALL BE SO MUCH EASIER…
… because in fact it’s quite simple. All companies want exactly the same: to produce gas and/or oil. To achieve this, they use exactly the same resources, exactly the same systems, exactly the same methods, under exactly the same circumstances… Perhaps, but they actually all approach things slightly differently, in their own tried and trusted way, which is certainly not necessarily the only right way. So why should things be done differently? What do you think? No idea? The WAT Group has!
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HSE HARMONIZATION
Within the industry, the call for harmonisation of procedures and instructions is heard as regularly as clockwork, and has been for decades. Countless specialists and amateurs have been struggling with the issue for years, either individually or in groups. So why has it never proved successful? What went wrong? Is it so difficult? Or not? If you have the right knowledge and consider things from the sidelines rather than from the heart of the action, you can understand the ambition but also see the obstacles preventing it. So what exactly is going on?
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HSE HARMONIZATION
“
A WIN-WIN-WIN SITUATION FOR INDIVIDUAL COMPANIES, THE OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY AND THE CONTRACTORS THAT WORK FOR IT
“
Piet van Dam
HSE Improvement Manager Europa NAM B.V.
Eyes wide open There are two ways of getting from A to B. The first involves only leaving A when there is almost 200% certainty of the exact location of B. That can take some time… The alternative way is more pragmatic. Leaving A means heading towards ‘a B’. Where the precise location of B is only becomes clear in the process towards B, organically and with widespread support. But much more importantly, actually leaving A forces you, more actively than ever, to go in search of this B, wherever it may be. If, in the process, you accidentally end up reaching a higher level, C, D or even E, it is not only a benefit but a genuine achievement.
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HSE HARMONZATION
So where do we actually want to end up?
“
IF YOU REALLY WANT TO ACHIEVE SOMETHING ON THIS FRONT, THEN YOU OBVIOUSLY NEED TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING THAT WILL BENEFIT THE WHOLE INDUSTRY. HSEQ Manager, Centrica Energy Upstream
“
Ronald Pijtak
No point reinventing the wheel
HSE HARMONIZATION
In the case in question, you can of course wait until everyone in the industry has reached full and complete agreement. But again, that can take some time. Alternatively, you can simply get started. Get down to action. Bring together one or more like-minded souls and do your utmost to reach agreement. In this quest, differences are inevitable. But then suddenly, these differences do not seem to be so big at all. Ultimately, with a little negotiation, it is possible to reach an excellent compromise. And this gives you an amazing, wonderful feeling. A revelation? Liberation? Salvation? Whatever it is, it is progress, an evolutionary step closer towards the inescapable fact: consensus. Seen from a theoretical perspective, somewhere in all this chaos lies the perfect structure, often one that is completely obvious, logical, acceptable and applicable.
Be all that as it may, this was the point of departure that The Wat Group suggested to some of its clients from the industry. The background to all of this was 10 or 12 years’ experience with company-specific management systems and similar procedures and instructions. That, and a question from us: is it not possible to make all of this more real, more human? Why go to all the effort of making contractors do things one way when they can perfectly well be done the other way? Why make all these efforts, by means of yet another induction, to show new staff that it is possible, no necessary, to interpret the same things slightly differently and to do it our way? Why all these different campaigns designed to achieve the same awareness, quite apart from all their different names? In a nutshell: why try to reinvent the wheel every time, with all the costs, problems and resistance?
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HSE HARMONIZATION
This is as clear as it gets (for now)
Henk Weits Health & Safety Supervisor GDF SUEZ E&P Nederland B.V.
“
“
THE ROAD TO PROGRESS IS CALLED HARMONIZATION. WE CAN ONLY ACHIEVE THIS TOGETHER. IT’S UP TO US TO TAKE THIS ROAD.“DARE TO CARE’’
Advance to the next level
HSE HARMONIZATION
We have already hinted at this in previous editions of HSE Life. But now, it’s all hands on deck. Centrica Energy Upstream and GdF Suez have been pioneers in this approach. NAM and TAQA have signalled their intention to follow. The first concrete product: a DVD entitled ‘Going offshore’, from home to the heliport, to the platform and back. Including the controversial issue ‘Alcohol, Drugs & Medicines’ and a summary of the hazards & risks. Plus a profile of the industry and the way in which it aims to tackle HSEQ events. And the icing on the cake: a chapter all about attitude and approach, trust and respect, awareness and responsibilities. With an additional bonus involving the use of HSE Life as an all-encompassing communication medium, the place for news about company-specific issues. NAM will be the first to get to work. After all, sometimes a little more is a good thing…
Let’s go back a bit. The DVD forms the basis of ready-made introduction packs to the various levels within the organisation and HSEQ documentation for supervisors and at workfloor level, platform guides and intranet applications. For these, special formats have been developed that can easily be adapted for each participating company in line with their house specifications. Unless, as appears to be the trend, a universal template emerges, independent of the individual producer. The advantages of a universal style used by all companies are clear… Indeed, The WAT Group is now talking of the realisation of a ‘next-level centralised communication community’, already dubbed ‘UNIO’. But we will return to that next time.
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HSE HARMONIZATION
Forget the triple jump, make the leap The notion of achieving harmonisation reflects the shared practice of the participants in terms of the broad outlines summarised in their mission statements and policy divisions. The exact details are configured, even now, at the level of the specific company and platform. The issue of specific risks and activities is not up for discussion here. In view of the milestones already achieved in these areas, they almost seem to be old ground. And with great thanks to NAM for making available their expertise to fellow companies in order to shape the harmonisation called for by the market (read: contractors), both horizontally and vertically!
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HSE HARMONIZATION
“
EXPLORATION (SUCCESS) IS WHAT SETS US APART, OUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. PRODUCING OIL & GAS IN A SAFE AND EFFICIENT MANNER IS WHAT BINDS US TOGETHER. WE HAVE MANY COMMON PROCESSES, CO-OPERATE IN JOINT VENTURES, SHARE LOGISTIC SERVICES AND WORK TOGETHER WITH THE SAME SUPPLIERS AND (SUB)CONTRACTORS. THIS COMMONALITY IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO ENHANCE EFFICIENCY AND IMPROVE HSSE PERFORMANCE. IN THE END WE WILL ALL BENEFIT FROM COMMON PRACTICES, PROCEDURES, TRAINING AND SYSTEMS. TIME TO TAKE THE “POOL” CONCEPT TO THE NEXT LEVEL! Managing Director TAQA Energy B.V.
“
Jan Willem van Hoogstraten
Too much at once? The industry is on the move. Or perhaps it isn’t, since denial is also an art. Anyone who is capable of looking further into the future than yesterday, knows that there is no choice but to go along with developments. After all, there was a time when the day before yesterday was the day after tomorrow And that was today, remember! To borrow from Einstein: ‘Everything is relative: discover the relativity before it discovers you’.
So there you have it: an open invitation to join us for discussion. There are places free for companies that still have the pioneering spirit and the willingness and nerve to find a responsible way of putting it into action…
Interested? Click here!
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E TH G N I N R O M LL CA EPISODE 3
Sjaak THE NORTH SEA COWBOY
G
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‘The Black Swan’s’ door closes heavily behind me. The bartender looks up for a moment. I see Jack in his typical, bowed posture. “Who is entering boy?” Jack asks. He tries to turn his neck, in vain. I step up beside him “Hey ye, doll! T’is you. Sit down here, you come to hear another of my little stories don’t you?”. He turns back to the bartender. “Hey, I still got it laddie. I am like honey for these chicks.”. He laughs his typical roaring, coughing-like laugh and gulps his beer.
“Jack,” I ask him, “weren’t you once member of a certain group that...”. “Yeah, yeah you want to know how I got there. Well I’ll tell you that my doll. It was during one of these shutdowns. I was sitting comfortably in our smallest cabin. I had this magazine full of pretty damsels, you know, smoking my fag and just sitting doing my thing. A knock on the door. “Jack, where the hell are you. We want to start” “Feck, that damned morning call.”, I replied. “Can’t a man even take a shit in peace here?” Anyway, I went to hear what Hammie had to say. Jack repeats the word Hammie and laughs out loud “ You see, our HMI* was a big boy, a real lump! So I called him Hammie, like ham you know”. The bartender puts down a fresh beer in front of Jack.
“So, we were all gathered like sheep there. I gave Henk, who sat beside me, the magazine with the damsels so he could take a peep. Hammie kept going on about the shutdown as if it was a big deal. What to do, what not to do. If I would stand there I would simply say “Pump that lump”. But this lumpy weirdo just talks and talks about pumping. The thing is that he studied mining and now thinks he is a hot shot. Well I study mining every time I get back to my wife. I really make her mine...” He winks at me. “You catch my drift baby”. He roars out loud with laughing. I can see the bartender sigh and slightly raise his brows.
“So, we were in this shutdown. Doing reparations ,going down the pipes before we are being piped down. Those kind of things.” Jack suddenly falls quiet and stares. I put my hand on his arm, realizing this must be a hard story to tell. An enormous belch startles me. “Oh, sorry doll. My stomach never really got over that fodder we had to eat offshore.” He continues his story.
16
THE MORNING CALL
“I was fiddling such a Christamstree. I saw Chuck having a fag so I say “Chuckie, good boy, pass me a fag.”Hammie told us we were to work well together so Chuck, the moron, puts the fag between his thumb and middle finger and shoots the burning bud to me. He hit me in the middle of the eye. I couldn’t leave the lid I was holding. The worst thing was that that prick HMI immediately was there and started nagging about the safety glasses. Arse, he doesn’t think I am going to put glasses on me head in summer. I get these white spots around me eyes, looking like a gun-dog. I am not going onshore looking like that...” Jack gulps his beer and a finger disappears behind his dark glasses. “Yeah...well of course my eyes are a bit troubled now, but we had quite some time after that when chuck and I were sent off to the safetytraining...”
*HMI- head mining installation
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dialogue
As long as people live with rules, there will be discussion about them. Everyone has their own views about rules that are imposed. But‌
how would you prefer your professional world to be arranged?
RESPOND!
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19
SONJA RIEMERSMA
ASTRID TRINKER
HSE Manager Asset Land & Asset Groningen
COFELY NAM ONSHORE CONTRACTS BV
Upstream International Europe
Kwaliteit Arbo Milieu
Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij B.V.
GDF SUEZ ENERGY SERVICES
QUESTION 1 Is the scope of the work always sufficiently clear? RIEMERSMA: Asset Land is currently in a transitional phase. As a result, maintenance is no longer supervised by the contractor, but by NAM foremen. OMC is still coordinating STOPS however. During this transitional period, it is possible that the scope may not always be clear. This is compounded by the fact that as soon as work needs to be carried out during a shutdown, large amounts of other work are also added to the scope. Of course, these options need to be investigated, but this should not be left until the last minute. It is essential that everyone keeps to the agreements reached on freezing the scope. This is a pre-requisite before the PRA (Project Risk Analysis) process can be instigated. The individual that starts the PRA process (for example, the operations supervisor) must ensure that the scope has been frozen and that the right parties (including contractors’ representatives) are invited to take part. Indeed, the precise aim of this first PRA session is to ensure that clarity is achieved.
TRINKER: When the work starts, it is not always clear what needs to be done. During the preparation process, there are regular contacts between Cofely and NAM E&M or NAM Operations. These generally involve clarifying the scope, adding to it or requesting related documentation/drawings.
QUESTION 2 How should this work be evaluated after its completion? RIEMERSMA: As far as HSE performance is concerned, every contractor is closely monitored. NAM has formulated a number of improvement initiatives with the contractors, for example, LMRA and SMAT. LMRA relates to the assessment of risks and is used to increase risk awareness. SMAT involves conducting a discussion with an employee during a location visit. The work is discussed and a joint assessment made as to whether the work is being conducted safely, what aspects may be considered good examples for others and how safety can possibly be further improved.
TRINKER: An evaluation should cover the different phases of the work starting from the formulation of the scope through to the ultimate completion of the work. This means that the subjects that arise every time are: the quality of the work, promptness, what went well, what lessons can be learned for the next time and how the risks were dealt with. The evaluation should be conducted by staff involved in the work and someone who monitors the process.
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QUESTION 3 What factors play a role in ensuring that the agreements made are met? RIEMERSMA: Openness, transparency and leadership. SMAT helps to achieve a cultural change by enabling people to become accustomed to conducting an open discussion about the work. However, it is important that SMAT does not take on the character of an intervention or audit. In this, everyone serves as an example to others. Consider how you would wish to be addressed and act accordingly in the SMAT discussion. You can ensure clarity by explaining how you intend to tackle your work and showing what you will be focusing on. In this, supervisors play a crucial role. They set the conditions, make time for their employees and set a positive example.
TRINKER: The main priority is that the agreements are clear and recognisable for everyone. There also needs to be a good (and above all realistic) deadline, the action owner must feel responsible for the action and someone needs to be designated to ensure the action is implemented.
QUESTION 4 What are the main factors that ensure good relationships at work? RIEMERSMA: We are all human, looking for a certain degree of recognition and appreciation. You can achieve good relationships by approaching your employees in the following ways: • Challenging them to come up with the best (and safest) solution for the work, rather than always thinking in terms of limitations. • Promoting individual responsibility, rather than focusing on adherence to rules. • Offering support, rather than focusing on monitoring. • Showing confidence in your employees, rather than focusing on recording agreements in advance. By this, I don’t mean, for example, that there is no need for a work permit or that the LSR does not need to be followed. It is all about adopting a personal approach in all of this. For example, when someone points out that a safer approach is possible, he or she is demonstrating personal responsibility. If you then give that person a compliment, it gives him or her the confidence that his or her insights and openness are appreciated. If you then challenge that person to put the idea into action, providing support where necessary, the foundations of effective cooperation have been put in place. However, work agreements still need to be recorded, a permit must be applied for and we are expected to abide by the instructions and agreements and to regularly check that everyone else is keeping to the agreements. But this should not prevent us from thinking in terms of what is possible. The fact that there are often good relationships at work is confirmed by the number of people who are eager to work for and with NAM.
TRINKER: A very important factor in creating a good relationship is mutual respect and trust. Providing that this is in place, there is also room for asking stupid questions and calling each other to account.
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dialogue
If you have to follow a procedure that tells you how
to put one foot in front of the other for every step you take, does that make sense?
Or is it more likely to trip you up?
RESPOND!
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An advance on
EVOLUTION Where actually is the ‘competitive edge’ for the companies involved in oil and gas exploration in the Netherlands? The answer comes from simply stating the facts: as they are and as they could be.
Jan-Willem van Hoogstraten
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“I would happily fight on the barricades for making rules uniform.” Our industry has seen an interesting trend in recent years. While underground reserves have been steadily declining, the challenges of continuing to operate profitably have increased, as the freedom to manoeuvre and the margin have dwindled. Calls for optimisation and greater efficiency have grown ever louder. These calls have translated into trends such as offshore crew downsizing and concentration on the ultimate responsibilities as licensee.
Shifts Various contractors have turned the situation to their advantage. It started in the 1960s with the occasional small project on the North Sea. Some expanded into fully integrated service providers with a broad package of services for the industry. Contractors accepted certain responsibilities that previously resided with the operators. Specialisation finally brings the advantage of being a specialist. Knowledge shifted from clients to contractors. This change put clients in a somewhat vulnerable position; knowledge, after all, is power. The influx of new employees did nothing to strengthen this position. Many of the new people no longer had an operational background. The supply of recruits from other maritime sectors – after several waves of reorganisation – also dried up. New employees were often recruited from outside, and affinity with the sector was scarcely an issue in the selection process.
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AN ADVANCE ON EVOLUTION
Straws in the wind Hopping from platform to platform, and from company to company, contractors evolved into indispensable sources of knowledge and experience. But what about the oil and gas companies: the licensees with ultimate responsibility for the operation? They continued – as they still do – to adhere rigidly to their own established patterns; their own protocols. In the meantime, the contractor would long since have been unable to find ‘the truth in the middle’ had he himself been less right-minded.
“Anyone who is able to develop professionally within a uniform framework will be far more broadly employable. It is a way of offering your people attractive prospects for moving to other companies, operators, or contractors. This may sound paradoxical, but people will be in less of a hurry to leave their current employer if they are confident of the opportunity to move elsewhere if the need arises…”
Right to exist It could be so much simpler. Just think of the time when each company had its own ships, and chartered its own helicopters. This era is now long gone. We have made enormous efficiency gains through having pools of assets. Whenever we go offshore the helicopter instruction video we watch is the same. So why don’t we have uniform rules and procedures for the North Sea, the same licence system, the same alarm number, and the same emergency response procedure? Is it because we all, individually, think we know best? And why should we, the oil and gas companies, have to create the rules? Wouldn’t it be much more logical for the specialist to do it? Wouldn’t offshore then be appreciably clearer and safer? Sometimes I even wonder what added value oil or gas company X, Y or Z still sees in operating its own platforms. Shouldn’t we be thinking about reconfiguring our business, and introducing a pool for this too? With a system like the one in the UK, where contractors are able to act as ‘duty holders’? Suppose this system were to materialise, shouldn’t we, the oil and gas companies, then focus more sharply on what we derive our right to exist from: finding and developing sources of oil and gas?
Jan Willem van Hoogstraten is Managing Director of TAQA Energy B.V.
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dialogue We have made agreements in our industry about working, and returning home, in safety and health. Needless to say, some things could be different. Do you know anything
that could be better?
RESPOND!
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T ’ N O
D ak e r b
r u o y on kfast a e br
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I’ve heard that the recipe for a long and healthy life is;
‘Have breakfast like an emperor, have lunch like a king and have dinner like a beggar’. Well, my uncle Gianni had all of his meals as if he was an emperor. Joyful he was. Till he was to have all of his meals like a beggar due to major healthproblems.
By having a good breakfast you really do yourself a favor. Going through the day, you need energy. With a stomach that merely contains coffee you simply function less well. Breakfast gives you a greater mental and physical power. On the other hand, with a stuffed stomach you even function less than on an empty one. Here you you find the four golden rules for breakfast.
You start very good by taking some fruit. Fruitjuice, fresh fruits. This gives you immediate energy and a shot of vitamins.
Have less of the sweetness. Sugar swiftly supplies energy, but you lose it even faster. For every sweet spread, have a salty one. This makes you hold your energy for a greater period of time.
Wholemeal is the deal. White bread contains absolutely n-o-t-h-i-n-g! It’s just materialized air that forms itself into a sticky ball in your intestines. So do choose wholemeal bread, that gives you the energy needed.
Sink in the drink. A pint of fruitjuice, a few cups of coffee or tea, glass of milk...
So enjoy your rich and varied breakfast like an emperor without having too rich quantities ;)
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TRANSPARENCY IS A
BLESSING
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G Bart van de Leemput Whereas many companies are now thinking seriously about how to coordinate their procedures and instructions, Shell (and therefore also NAM) are in the ‘luxury position’ of being able to concentrate on the lack of ambiguity and the comprehensibility of their own rules, throughout the chain.
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“
TRANSPARENCY IS A BLESSING
WE WILL ALWAYS KEEP THE DISCUSSION ALIVE.
”
Things can always be better.
Driven by constant concern,
each year we are working more safely than the year before. We have learned many things about how to work better, and more safely. Explaining works. Procedures are effective only if people understand them. There is more to understanding than knowing the facts. It also demands a degree of experience, because only then will it be possible in practice to recognise the risks that procedures seek to avoid. It is therefore necessary to explain, not only to new employees, but also to old hands whose knowledge may have become dulled in the course of time, or who need realigning with changes in the company’s focus. Repetition, and demanding permanent attention to the dangers and risks of work and the workplace, are also effective measures. Only then can you keep a healthy sense of vulnerability alive, which is what keeps people alert.
“Obeying tried-and-tested rules can make your own life a bit easier. Procedures are based on things that once went wrong. When procedures become a habit, we can prevent problems. Life is just too short to make all the mistakes yourself. Moreover, some mistakes can make life shorter. More to the point: one big mistake can mean it is all over. The moral of this story is to learn from mistakes, because someone already made them.” “Anyone who would like to try an ‘alternative’ way of learning about the mistakes others have made should take a look on www.darwinawards.com. This site presents – posthumous – awards to people who have improved our gene pool by (accidentally) removing themselves from it.”
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TRANSPARENCY IS A BLESSING
The question we are always asking is whether we have made it all simple and efficient enough. Our CMS is full of procedures, all of which are interrelated, never absolute. It is a fact that no one in the workplace looks forward to complicated quests that eventually produce bulky documents. This is why we are attempting to structure the CMS as clearly as possible, while translating the material in it as comprehensibly as possible. Entire sets of instructions are being reviewed on a regular basis. The updated versions are entered into the CMS. Our staff in the field take care of implementation and rollout throughout the chain, including to contractors. They are supported by the tools we have developed, such as ‘A way of living’. It takes time, and in the meantime countless high priority matters demand, or perhaps even compete for, attention. This is a lesson we have now learned: investing in safety takes time. But handled correctly, the lack of incidents will ultimate save enormous amounts of time.
We make no secret of our rules, and how we and our contractors constantly evaluate them. Our information is available to all, which is consistent with our aim of keeping the discussion alive. We do this not on the basis of the regulations themselves, but from the notion that ‘we care’.
Bart van de Leemput is Managing Director of NAM
www.a-way-of-living.info
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TEAMWORK IS A
MUST
Why does it take so long to achieve a little bit of uniformity
in the industry? Sometimes you just have to make a start to find out that far more can be achieved than you first thought. And when you start, do it properly: as resolutely as possible.
Frits van der Wilt
TEAMWORK IS A MUST
“It would be going too far to make comparisons of each other’s well data.” We are firmly in favour of sharing knowledge and experience. Why should we keep reinventing the wheel, since we are all doing roughly the same things with the same aim? How far you should pursue that line of thought obviously depends on the circumstances in which you operate. For instance, we in Norway abandoned a package of our own procedures in favour of those adopted by several major companies. In the Netherlands I (and others) have often advocated joining with other companies to achieve some goal or other. Until now this objective has not been taken up sufficiently, at least in firm projects. I always sense a degree of reluctance when subjects of this kind come up for discussion, which may be why talks tend to stall. I then wonder where the reluctance comes from. Might people be worried that someone could make off with the information? Let’s be honest: haven’t we been using each other’s information for years? It’s almost a habit!
“To use a shipping industry analogy. One captain lets you keep your boots on, but another makes you take them off.” although there are many international agreements about competencies, certificates, and so on.
I think there is no point in waiting until everyone is in line from A to Z. It must be possible simply to start, specifically with the aspects about which there is no debate. There is a generic part that is the same for all companies. There are many other subjects on which views and opinions run in parallel. When all is said and done, we do not differ drastically from each other. So let’s get together at the start and set down what we want. And where differences do exist, it is likely that they can and will diminish as we discover that we indeed have more in common than appeared at first glance. It is more awkward to identify common factors in company-specific aspects, and this may indeed be impossible on site or platform level. But take note: if we act like rigidly rational engineers, we will soon get bogged down deciding on the pitch of a screw thread. It is not an option to think that time will stop if the clock isn’t ticking. With this in mind, we have been getting around the table with several parties recently to try to draft a joint document on what we have in common. In other words, we have simply made a start. When we have made a little more progress, we will welcome other parties to join us.
Frits van der Wilt is HSE Manager at GDF SUEZ E&P Nederland B.V.
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dialogue
What do you think? Do you see things differently? Tell us!
RESPOND!
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for industry, by industry HSE LIFE is a forum for those working in the petroleum and natural gas industry. HSE LIFE focuses particularly on those working wherever HSEW is really an issue or really should be an issue: on the shop floor.
HSE LIFE magazine is published by: The WAT Group B.V. P.O. Box 20033 7302 HA Apeldoorn The Netherlands Mobile: +31 (6) 462 95 25 6(7, 8, 9) Take a look at our renewed website: www.thewatgroup.com On this issue worked René Beaumont, Natascha Bruti, Marjou Janse, Veselin Raznatovic, Ramon Roelofs, Marcel van Spronsen, Pier van Spronsen, Stéphanie van Stockum, Janine IJssel de Schepper, Jonathan van Woudenberg
Please e-mail any comments about subjects discussed in this magazine to info@thewatgroup.com attn. Janine Ijssel de Schepper.
Articles may not be taken from this publication within the meaning of Article 15 of the Netherlands Copyright Act.; © The WAT Group B.V. 2010