Systematic Approach to Occupational Health and Safety in the Engineering Phase of Offshore Development Projects. Experience from the Norwegian Petroleum Activity

摘要

Many employees on offshore oil and gas installations have tornrely on personnel protective equipment to avoid work relatedrndiseases. This is not recognised as a proper preventionrnstrategy. High noise levels and bad ergonomic solutions arernoften intimately embedded in the design of the installations.rnTo rectify a hazardous design by technical modifications in thernoperating phase are difficult to achieve and expensive tornperform. Occupational health and safety achievements seemrnnot to fit well into traditional cost benefit basedrndecision-making.rnThe Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has since 1995rnenforced an occupational health and safety legislation thatrnfocus in particular on a systematic approach in the planningrnphase of offshore development projects. The NPD hasrnfollowed most of the recent offshore projects closely throughrnaudits and verifications.rnThe Norwegian petroleum industry has followed up thernlegislative initiative by developing specific standards for howrnto implement occupational health and safety requirements inrnthe engineering phase.rnOver the last few years we have observed substantialrnimprovements of the engineering practice. A commonrnunderstanding of requirements and structured co-operationrnbetween project management, experienced workers, designrnengineers and occupational health and safety experts seems tornbe important pre-requisites for success.rnThis paper will describe and discuss key elements of thernNorwegian legislative basis and bring forward some of thernexperience gained trough project auditing and follow-uprnactivity related to implementation of occupational health andrnsafety requirements in the engineering phase of offshorerndevelopment projects.