Structure and Functioning of the ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 Certified HSEManagement System of the Offshore Installation South Arne

摘要

South Arne is an oil and gas producing installation in theDanish sector of the North Sea. Its HSE management systemwas certified to ISO 14001 (environment) in 2002 andOHSAS 18001 (health and safety) certified in 2005. It was thefirst certified offshore production facility in Denmark. Thepurpose of adjusting the management system in line with therequirements of the standards was to ensure a structuredsystem which can be used for facilitating continualimprovement in HSE performance.Various studies have discussed whether certification ofHSE management systems leads to improved HSEperformance. Two keys to success include development of agood safety culture and clear and convincing managementcommitment. An important part of a good safety culture is agood reporting culture with respect to HSE incidents. Clearmanagement commitment is indicated by prompt response toactions identified to prevent recurrence of incidents as well asensuring that key contractors are included in the facility HSEmanagement system.South Arne originally used incident severity rating scoresas a measure of HSE performance, based on a relativelycomplicated rating matrix. It was not easily understood andprovided poor consistency of ratings. Therefore, a revisedmatrix was developed based on feedback from users and itappears to be more easily understood and results in moreconsistent ratings.HSE target setting and improvement plans are fundamentalin both the ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 standards. Thedifficulties in independently measuring health and safetyperformance are discussed. In addition, both the inherentchanges caused by maturing of the fields and the problems inweighting different types of environmental impacts makes it difficult to objectively define improvement in environmentalperformance.The experience is that certification of HSE managementsystems helps operators to manage their HSE matters in astructured way. The certification process in itself sets focus onHSE in the organisation. Offshore and onshore management,employees and contractors work together towards a commongoal. Therefore, both the preparations for certification and theresulting improved HSE management system have a positiveeffect internally and as a signal of HSE commitment towardsexternal stakeholders.