Near Miss Incident on Hibernia Platform Offshore Canada

A near-miss incident occurred last week aboard HMDC's Hibernia platform in the Atlantic Ocean, offshore Canada.

Offshore oil and gas regulator Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB) said the incident had happened on May 13, during platform cargo operations, while two workers were attempting to connect a 10’ x 8’ container lifting bridle to an approximately 10m pennant line assembly, off of the East pedestal crane main hook. 

"The pennant line assembly consists of a D Ring, wire rope and hook. The container had been landed unevenly on a cantilevered deck and needed to be adjusted. While the crane operator attempted to maneuver the main hook into position, the main hook contacted a structural beam causing the hook to move from a vertical to horizontal position, which caused the 5kg D Ring to slide past the spring-loaded latch on the crane main hook and fall approximately 10m. The entire pennant line assembly came to rest on the container, approximately 1.5m away from the closest person," C-NLOPB said.

"There were no injuries. Only authorized personnel were inside the exclusion zone. Due to the container taking up the whole footprint of the cantilevered deck, there was no potential for personnel to be directly under the pennant line assembly when it fell. There were also two structural beams between the lift and the location of personnel inside the exclusion zone. The incident had the potential for fatality, based on the Dropped Objects Prevention Scheme (DROPS) calculator," C-NLOPBadded.

HMDC ceased all crane operations and has initiated an investigation into the root cause of the incident, C-NLOPB said.

The Hibernia Platform is located 315 kilometers east southeast of St. John’s. It uses a fixed structure with three compartments: topsides, Gravity Based Structure (GBS), and an offshore loading system.

The shareholders of Hibernia Management and Development Company Ltd. (HMDC) are: ExxonMobil Canada (33.125%), Chevron Canada Resources (26.875%), Suncor (20%), Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation (8.5%), Murphy Oil (6.5%) and Equinor Canada Ltd. (5%).