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Abstract The successful start up of a rig is key to the ongoing success of a drilling contract for both operator and contractor alike. Good performance can only be achieved through competent, highly motivated and safety conscious people. Therefore, getting the HR, HSEQ & Training elements correct at the outset cannot be left to chance and good fortune but must be the result of integrated cross functional planning amongst a number of key stakeholders. One drilling contractor had gained experience starting several major projects across the world in recent years and had developed a methodology for the ideal rig start up using a cross functional project approach. As part of its strategic growth plans, in 2007 it was going to start-up in excess of 20 very diverse rig operations over the twelve month period. Achieving success in growth of this size, speed & variety could not be left to chance but had to be as a result of good planning. This paper will discuss how that organisation took the lessons it learned in the past and applied them in a structured manner via its Corporate HSE plan to ensure each and every start up was Safe, Effective & Trouble free. The paper analyses the successes and failures of various start ups across the organisation and demonstrates that the more involvement HR, HSEQ & Training had in the early stages the more successful the overall start up was. This was particularly true when involvement formed part of a structured and integrated plan in conjunction with all stakeholders including clients. Given the projected volume of new work across the industry over the coming years, along with the recognised shortages of experienced personnel available, this fully integrated approach to starting up new operations is highly significant in today's drilling industry. Introduction The drilling contractor had utilized project management techniques in a number of major platform rig start ups. In 2007 the contractor was faced with a significant number of land rig, platform rig and MODU start-ups, coupled with shortages in experienced personnel in the drilling industry. In anticipation of these challenges, in December 2006 the contractor committed to pre-empting any potential risk exposure it might face through problem start-ups by making a formal requirement in its annual HSE Plan for Country Managers to prepare integrated plans for all start-ups. An extract from the contractor's 2007 HSE Plan is shown in Figure 1. While the requirement was for "an integrated plan" it involves a number of very different disciplines. The way to ensure success is to ensure that the activities of these disciplines are co-ordinated around one another to bring about the possible synergies between them. This involves both the sequential and concurrent scheduling of activities and also the identification of those sets of activities which are iterative in nature requiring feedback loops between two or more different disciplines. This paper has been written to outline the nature of HR, HSEQ and Training activities which are required for a successful start-up, and also to identify the nature of some of the information flows and feedback loops between disciplines.
Abstract In early 2003, the drilling contractor was awarded the final in a series of operations and maintenance contracts for 4 "cyber" platform rigs which were at the time in various stages of engineering design and construction with the first to start operations in September 2004 offshore Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea. While Azerbaijan has one of the longest histories of oil exploration and production, this was largely on old rigs under Soviet style leadership, operational and safety standards. The Operator's corporate objectives of no harm to people and delivering continuous improvement in drilling operations performance required a safe, effective and trouble free start-up and world leading safety and operational standards delivered through competent highly motivated personnel. The recruitment challenge in sourcing some 500 expatriates and Azerbaijani nationals to deliver these objectives required a new approach so the contractor assembled a cross-functional project team to identify and solve the potential problems ahead. This paper will demonstrate how the company's approach to recruitment and retention, particularly the extensive project planning and management up front, can be directly linked to performance in the platform rig start-up. It will conclude by showing how the lessons learned from this approach can be transferred to other start-ups and recruitment campaigns providing opportunities for optimising recruitment and retention strategy, and associated cost and efficiency savings. Introduction The ability to attract, select and recruit high quality employees to meet the needs of the business must be a core competency of any drilling contractor. In our business it is quite normal for a rig to move from one country to another with most, if not all the local crew changing out and many of the expatriates moving on to other assignments. In these circumstances, recruitment campaigns for some 50–60 personnel are required with most being hired a short time before the rig goes on contract and minimal training and familiarization being provided. The task faced by the contractor in this paper was of several magnitudes greater than it had faced before in terms of the number of expatriates and locals to be hired, the skills base in the local market and the client's rigorous requirements for the efficient start-up of their flagship international projects. In addition, the nationalization targets specified in the PSA posed a challenge in recruiting expatriates who would join the project in the knowledge that their positions would be nationalized in a number of years. Before any of this, however, was the absolute necessity to define ownership of the recruitment campaign. In Summer 2002, some 2 years before the start-up of the first platform rig, the rig-build projects were being run by traditional engineering project managers with a focus on the delivery of a technical solution. Recruitment and training of the rig crew were termed "parallel issues" and very much left to Rig Managers, assigned to the project teams, to manage in their spare time. There was little or no buy in from the company's corporate office. After all, 2 years is a long time to recruit a rig crew and there were more pressing day to day crises to manage! By August 2002, it became clear that the parallel issues were as significant to the success of the projects as the rig build itself and a risk assessment was conducted which identified the likelihood and impact of the major risks to the successful delivery of competent crews on time and on budget. As a result of this risk assessment it was clear that a formal project team approach was required and a cross-functional project team was assembled to define the recruitment strategy and plan. The plan for each rig, which was presented to the client in December 2002, took the rig start up date when all crew training was to be complete and worked back to a hire date for each position. Given the extensive training required, particularly for maintenance positions, drillers and shift supervisors, together with the time they would need to spend assigned to the project undertaking procedure writing, factory acceptance tests and commissioning activities, it soon became clear that the first expatriate employees should ideally already have been hired. Although start-up of the first rig was 2 years away, the recruitment project was already behind schedule!
- Asia > Azerbaijan (0.56)
- Europe (0.36)
Abstract Having a positive Safety Culture is central to good health and safety management. It is an indication of an organisation's determination and competence to control hazards at work. This paper describes an innovative project undertaken both to measure and to improve Safety Culture within a platform drilling contractor operating in the North Sea. In this context, safety culture is defined as 'the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisation's health and safety management'. The project in itself was innovative, not in that the company recognised the problem and sought to assess it through the use of a Safety Culture survey, but that they also committed to using their entire workforce to help solve or improve upon issues highlighted by the survey. The process used in this project is one that other drilling contractors and operators within the Oil and Gas Industry should consider as a method for developing solutions to break the safety cycle and achieve continuous safety improvement. This paper describes the process of assessment and the results obtained. The successes and pitfalls of the approach and project are discussed in an attempt to guide others through the process. Introduction The drilling contractor, whose activities in the North Sea are restricted to platform drilling, has implemented systems and controls to manage and improve the company's HS&E performance. As a result the company's global safety performance has improved as measured by standard incident and accident data. The company recognises, however, that there is a limit to the health and safety performance an organisation can achieve without addressing the contribution which human factors have to play in eliminating occupational accidents and ill health. As an example of the variation in safety performance which the company believed might have been attributable to human factors, the safety management systems and controls referred to above are the same across all its North Sea operations. Despite this, inconsistencies in incident frequency were identified across clients and installations. For example, in 1996 some 830,000 man hours were worked across the 5 installations belonging to a single client. This work took place without incurring a single Lost Time Accident. In 1997 some 930,000 man hours were worked across the same 5 installations. In this year 11 Lost Time Accidents were incurred. Such trends are not new and have been analysed by safety professionals and industrial psychologists alike and are commonly termed the ‘safety cycle’. In order to investigate the possible root causes of these inconsistencies and develop solutions that would break the safety cycle and sustain continuous improvement, the company sought the long-term involvement of the workforce through a Safety Culture Assessment and Improvement project. The project involved the use of a newly developed Safety Climate measurement and assessment tool, combined with confidential interviews and workforce consultations as part of an overall cultural review and improvement process. The paper details the identification of the problem, the development and implementation of the processes required to investigate and solve the problem and the solutions. There is a clear demonstration of the benefits of management commitment to improving safety performance, and of workforce involvement in finding the solutions.
- Europe > United Kingdom > North Sea (0.65)
- Europe > Norway > North Sea (0.65)
- Europe > North Sea (0.65)
- (2 more...)
- Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Sustainability/Social Responsibility > Integrating HSSE into the business (1.00)
- Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Safety > Safety risk management (1.00)
- Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > HSSE & Social Responsibility Management > HSSE management systems (1.00)