The change in safety management for offshore oil and gas production systems

This paper examines the following aspects of offshore safety in oil and gas production systems before and after the Piper Alpha Disaster: Regulation/legislation; Research/risk modelling; General safety trends. It shows that the change from prescriptive regulation to self-regulation has produced better designs and that the research and risk modelling before and after Piper Alpha cover the same fields but are now more focused. There is clear evidence of a desire to minimize human exposure to risk through automatic systems and devise the safest design option as early as possible, for more detailed development. The evidence points to steady reduction of fatalities and injury rates over at least 15 years, but the highest individual risk is still transport to and from the installation.