The author of the report into the Piper Alpha disaster, 29 years ago, has today welcomed the launch of a new oil and gas resource to help prevent future offshore incidents.
Encompassing the Future: Offshore Oil and Gas Operations is a multi-volume volume print and digital resource, which draws on 40 years of inter-disciplinary knowledge and experience in environmental, health and safety and performance management.
An International Centre for Oil and the Environment (ICOE) initiative, the report, which will be updated continuously, involved 60 authors and 10 editors.
The idea is that it will be a knowledge repository to help the industry, today and tomorrow, deal with the challenges it faces and prevent incidents happening. With the great crew change on us, it's also important to ensure past lessons learned are not forgotten, said ICOE President Paul Warwick, an industry veteran, who led ConocoPhillips' business in the North Sea, during a launch event in Aberdeen this morning.
Lord Cullen, who wrote the Piper Alpha report, said: “Painful lessons were learnt from the tragic events on 6 July 1988. These lessons, like so many others in the industry, must never be forgotten. They should be used to ensure the safety of the people who work in it, the protection of the environment and the overall economic health and sustainability of offshore operations. The ten volumes of this resource will be an essential knowledge bank to pass on lessons learnt to the next generation, making sure that the industry retains the full benefit of years of expertise and experience.
“More than ever such comprehensive reference material is required. A mature province with ageing infrastructure, challenging economics, demographics and technology that pushes new boundaries must welcome and make full use of such a resource.”
William Cairns, executive chairman of ICOE and editor-in-chief of the resource, said: “Compiling such a comprehensive knowledge repository during one of the most challenging periods faced by the industry has been a mammoth task. However, with the support of industry and academic experts, this much-anticipated project distils, records and shares intellectual and operational expertise in a format for the digital age. Its value is inestimable not only in terms of accident prevention and avoidance of environmental damage, improving decision-making to ensure greater efficiency but also in exporting North Sea experience and expertise around the world.”
The launch, held at Aberdeen University’s Kings College Conference Centre, had speakers including Warwick, Colette Cohen, from the Oil & Gas Technology Centre, the OGA's Gunther Newcomb, P3L Energy chairman Chris Bird and petroleum economist Professor Alex Kemp.
Guests were given an overview of the thinking behind the project, the challenges currently facing the sector and how this knowledge bank can help meet these through new thinking, the retention and transfer of expertise and the collaborative imperatives between industry and universities.
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