Risk recogniton keeps industry safely wrapped up against cold

Risktec Solutions Limited is bringing its consultancy expertise to bear in some of the planet’s harshest environments.

The company has won contracts providing HSE (Health, Safety and the Environment) Cases in two areas of the world – Sakhalin, off the east coast of Russia, and Kazakhstan’s sector of the Caspian Sea – where plummeting winter temperatures spell a potential hazard to both employee and business.

Each location places major hazardous industries in areas of outstanding natural beauty and extreme environmental sensitivity.

Risktec Consultant Andy Lidstone said: “An HSE Case is designed to ensure operations are carried out without endangering personnel, the environment, the asset or the company.s reputation. By observing and assessing a number of industrial installations in areas of extreme climatic change, we have gained a body of knowledge of potentially hazardous effects of extreme cold on operations and employees”.

“For instance, there are limits for when you can and cannot use cranes due to the weakening effect on steel of freezing temperatures, while people working at temperatures below -40ºC, even with full PPE, will perhaps have a 20 to 30-minute work window before they need to go to a heated shelter.”

 

SAKALIN ISLAND

The breathtaking beauty of Sakhalin’s north island, with its mountains, miles of silver birch forests, and coastal waters extraordinarily rich in sealife, masks a hostile climate. The island, in a corner of the Sea of Okhotsk, is snow-covered from December until May. The north-east of the island, where the Vityaz complex is located, is icebound for most of this period and temperatures can fall to below -30ºC.

Vityaz, which is made up of the Molikpaq drilling and production platform and Okha FSO (Floating Storage Offloading vessel), is operated by the Sakhalin Energy Investment Company (SEIC).

Last year, it produced 15 million barrels of crude oil and is Russia’s first offshore facility to supply crude to the international market. SEIC plans to expand the operation to three platforms, supplying crude oil and liquefied natural gas all-year round from an ice-free port on Sakhalin’s south island.

Risktec is preparing an HSE Case for the operation and support of the Vityaz complex, including interfacing with an accommodation platform during construction work.

Risktec consultant David Bonsall said: “The proposed development of oil and gas fields off the coast of Sakhalin presents significant technical challenges. Managing the risk to the environment is very important. The sea is rich with marine life, notably salmon, and is a summer feeding ground for western grey whales. The complex must operate to high HSE standards for the safety and health of company and contractor employees and the protection of the environment.

The climate is a major consideration all-year-round. In the winter, ice formed in an ‘ice kitchen’ to the north of the Complex flows down the eastern side of the island, surrounding the Molikpaq in flowing ice. The FSO has to leave the area during the winter.

The area is very remote, and logistics for getting equipment to Vityaz are complex. Equipment from off the island is brought into Korsakov, the island’s southernmost port, and is then transferred by road to Kholmsk, on the eastern seaboard. A further three-day sea journey in a supply vessel with icebreaking capabilities then follows.”

 

CASPIAN SEA

Agip Kazakhstan North Caspian Operating Company (Agip KCO), operator of the Kashagan development on behalf of a consortium of international companies; Eni’s Agip Caspian Sea, BP, BG Group, ExxonMobil, Inpex, Phillips, Shell, Statoil and TotalFinaElf, has constructed a 150 metre by 100 metre artificial island in the Kazakhstan-owned north-east corner of the Caspian Sea, for a land-based oil and gas drilling operation by drilling contractor KCA Deutag.

The Caspian Sea’s very shallow waters, only four metres around the island, ruled out traditional floating or jack-up offshore drilling rigs – and also presented Risktec with a challenging job in helping to assess the potential risks in the operation and ensuring the right controls and recovery measures are in place.

The HSE Case took account of the environmentally sensitive ecosystem of that corner of the Caspian Sea, which is home to a high percentage of the world’s sturgeon population – probably the most important natural resource of the region – and is subject to zero discharge regulations.

Once again, temperatures as high as +40ºc in summer and as low as -30ºc in winter became major operational and safety considerations. In winter, the sea around the island freezes and the wind can move the ice sheets at speeds up to five knots, building ice rubble mounds six-metres high in less than 24 hours and requiring pro-active ice-management procedures.

Consultant Mark Taylor said: “The HSE Case and Safety Operations Plan we helped prepare covered specifically the drilling of wells and well testing. Using local knowledge of wind direction and ice flow patterns several scenarios were developed for emergency evacuation in the unlikely event of a hydrogen suphide gas release. There are three designed Arktos vehicles, a Canadian designed motorised amphibious people carrier, which would move cross-wind across a mixture of water and ice to evacuate personnel. This requires the vehicles. drivers to be highly trained and skilled.”

Risktec consultants have successfully completed HSE Cases for drilling rigs, logistics/supply bases, offshore production platforms, onshore terminals, pipelines, gathering stations, marine vessels, chemical facilities, gas plant and distribution, refinery units and mines.

Andy Lidstone added: “We base solutions on understanding the client’s business and the issues it faces, and the best way to do this often involves putting on your warmest clothing and seeing – and feeling – for yourself just what those issues are.”

This article first appeared in RISKworld Issue 1.