THE IVANHOE/ROB ROY STORY; POST PIPER, PRE-CULLEN

This paper describes how the events that occurred on Piper Alpha on 7 July 1988 were responded to by Amerada Hess Limited with respect to its Ivanhoe/Rob Roy field. The Invanhoe/Rob Roy field was almost unique in that it was in the final stages of construction and commissioning of the floating production facility at the time the catastrophe occurred on Piper. It was therefore unable to benefit from the result of the lengthy public inquiry and, as a floating production facility with limited offshore accommodation, was incapable of being significantly modified on location. The paper describes the company's systematic approach to gleaning information from the Piper accident, its development of hypothetical catastrophic situations for Ivanhoe/Rob Roy and the designed responses thereto, how it carried out an exhaustive 'safety case' from first principles at a very late stage in the project development programme and applied those results in the form of engineering changes prior to installation in the field on time. The paper then goes on to describe the way that the safety attitude, long established in its senior management, was focused on the operating methodology and procedure for the field coming on stream and its subsequent operation, and how training and psychological preparation was established throughout the operation.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • WEMT '91, Intl Conf Offshore Operations Post Piper Alpha; 6-8 Feb 1991; London U.K. Sponsored by Inst Marine Engrs & RINA Joint Offshore Group. Pprs. Publ by Marine Management (Holdings) Ltd., ISBN 0-907206-39-5. Paper 7, p 53 [5 p]
• Authors:
  • Gaisford, R W
  • Hays, D L
• Publication Date: 1991

Language

• English

Subject/Index Terms

• Uncontrolled Terms: Floating production systems; Modifications
• Old TRIS Terms: Platform safety
• Subject Areas: Marine Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00702116
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: British Maritime Technology
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 14 1995 12:00AM