Lloyd's Register (LR) won a contract to provide Maersk Oil with a comprehensive suite of risk-management services to support the offshore operator’s commitment to meet global demand for energy in an efficient, safe and environmentally responsible manner. The agreement requires Lloyd’s Register to support Maersk Oil’s global management of four key areas of operational risk -- hazard identification and risk assessment (HIRA), accident and incident investigation, management of change and contractor management.
“Ensuring consistent standards of risk management across a global network of high-value offshore assets is an increasingly complex task. Operators often face challenges that arise from differing legislative regimes, work cultures and levels of asset maturity,” said Bjorn Inge Bakken, Chief Executive Officer, Scandpower AS, a member of the Lloyd's Register Group. “Lloyd’s Register is one of a very few independent assurance providers with the global reach and diversity of technical expertise to provide the innovative solutions which fully support multinationals in this area. We believe this agreement recognises that.”
The geographical scope of the agreement covers Maersk Oil's current production areas, which include Denmark, the UK, offshore Qatar and Kazakhstan, from where the company sources a daily aggregate of about 700,000 barrels of oil equivalent.
It also covers Maersk Oil’s exploration and drilling campaigns; the company currently has offshore exploration activities in the producing countries as well as in Norway, Angola, Brazil, the US Gulf of Mexico and Greenland.
Maersk Oil says it has placed safety as its number one priority under its programme of improvement initiatives across the organisation.
“These process safety streams form an important component of the Maersk Oil incident-free programme, which is aimed at transforming globally our safety culture and safety performance,” said Wells Grogan Head of HSSEQ, Maersk Oil.
To assure a globally consistent implementation of the HIRA work stream, Scandpower will support Maersk Oil in applying the structure and intent of ISO 31000, the international standard for risk management, thereby providing a framework to assure consistent systems implementation while remaining flexible enough to address disparate legislative requirements, cultural expectations and specific operational needs.
The contractor management and management of change work-streams will reflect industry best practice and the structure and intent of international standards. The accident and incident investigation work-stream will focus on providing specialist training for Maersk Oil employees, which includes an analysis of the leaders' role, human factors and the behavioural aspects of accident causation.