Solution
Robert answered on
Dec 21 2021
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OHS in the Australian Offshore Petroleum Industry
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Introduction
Operational environment of the Oil and Gas industry is considered to be consisting of high
pressure and highly flammable liquids, which collectively makes the overall operational system
much hostile. (APPEA, 2011) Adoption of cutting edge technologies and adherence with
egulatory and precautionary norms has enhanced the safety performance of the petroleum
industry and helped it in achieving significantly higher safety state in comparison to the other
industries like transport, construction, mining and manufacturing industries. Review of past few
decades’ safety performance of petroleum industry, it has been infe
ed that significant
improvement in the safety performance is the outcome of its collaborative efforts and strict
adherence with the safety and protection policies.
Among various rules, regulations and guidelines for development of safe and secure
operational environment, one of the significant aspects is Occupation Health and Safety (OHS).
As the OHS is associated with the protection of safety, health and welfare of people engaged in
different kind of work and job responsibilities, and offshore petroleum industry is one among the
highly risky place, thus comprehensive and stricter OHS regulation became the necessity of an
effective operational environment for offshore petroleum industry. There exist significant
changes in the regulatory framework of the onshore and offshore occupational health and safety
a
angements. In order to understand the basic differences of such and evaluate different aspects
of OHS regulations for offshore industry, this paper intends to analyze cu
ent OHS environment
of offshore petroleum industry, legislative and regulatory environment of OHS, effectiveness of
its safety guidelines, comparative analysis of offshore and onshore Industry OHS regulations and
urge of harmonization in OHS rules and regulations.
Identification and analysis of existing OHS environment of Offshore Petroleum Industry
As oil and gas industry is considered to be much vulnerable to the personal health and safety
elated risks, thus it seems detrimental for regulatory authorities to develop effective protection
and safety guidelines that can ensure optimal protection of individuals and establishments from
contingent situations. As like governments of every nation, Australian government has also
eviewed the vital role of effective safety guidelines and regulations and evaluated the
occupational health and safety position of organizations operating under offshore petroleum
industry. In consideration to the intrinsic operational risks associated with offshore petroleum
industry and specific nature of accidents occu
ed in past, like Varanus Island case, Ka
atha
Spirit case, Stena Clyde case etc, government has established a dedicated national regulatory
authority, named National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority (NOPSA). (NOPSA, 2012)
An analysis of the health and safety related issues in offshore petroleum industry has
evealed the fact that even though significant changes in the chemicals use and health risks
elated to computer based workings has been observed, but the overall nature of health or safety
isks almost remain insignificantly changed, even in almost three decades. In general health risk
assessment process, being applied to the specific industry, there exist five groups of potential
health related issues, such as chemical, physical, biological, psychological and ergonomic
hazards. (Bills and Agostini, 2009) Major health risks observed in the individuals, working at
offshore sites, involves noise and vi
ation health risks, radiation and thermal exposure risks,
extreme heat and cold exposures, enhanced exposure to benzene and Hydrogen Sulfide causing
diseases like cancer and leukemia, food poisoning or poor hygiene with water, health issues
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elated to musculoskeletal and neck, upper limbs and lower back, and psychological risks like
stress, work overload. (Niven and McLeod, 2009)
In order to mitigate or minimize the overall influence of such health and safety issues,
Australian government and NOPSA has implemented certain operational guidelines and
egulation, whose compliance improvises the safety performance of the organizations. As the
global economy’s reach towards easily available oil and gas resources is restricting day by day
and petroleum organizations are bound to move for difficult oil and gas explorations, it causes
significant increase in the overall health and safety related issues. Upcoming challenges in
complex petroleum exploration and refining operations and enhanced health and safety concerns
compels organizations towards adoption of Safety and Value Engineering, in comparison to the
conventional process engineering....