Stronger, Safer Offshore Support

摘要

Think of safety and the offshore industry, and images of oil gushing from a drill-head or gas burning off on a working platform in dramatic fashion may spring to mind. Whenever you are in the vicinity of a massive structure that extracts such volatile substances, the threat of explosion and lire, however small, remains. Memories linger of the 1988 Piper Alpha rig disaster - the worst-ever offshore disaster, in which 167 people lost their lives. For these reasons, stringent technological processes, safety procedures and regulations are in place to handle the core dangers of the offshore industry and a lot of safety systems are now engineered to act independently of the people involved. Vigilance is the byword, and more and more regulators and technologists have been widening their focus towards less obvious perils associated with offshore support vessels.