OFFSHORE SAFETY CASE MANAGEMENT AND REVIEW
The best-practice approach to major hazards management

Operators of offshore installations want to be sure that their operations are safe and do not expose their people or their business to unacceptable levels of risk. Plant modifications, variations on operating conditions and new ownership mean that the risk picture is changing.

Regulators and other stakeholders ask you to justify the continuing operation of the installation through safety cases. Regulatory compliance is essential to your business.

What is Safety Case Management?
Starting in the UK, the Safety Case approach is now recognised by regulators in other countries leading to the introduction of Safety Case systems worldwide. Several large international oil and gas operators have independently recognised the benefits of the approach and voluntarily introduced safety case systems to their global operations.

The development and update of safety case documents is a task which takes input from a range of discipline engineers and technologists working for the operator as staff or consultants, etc. A life cycle approach is required to cover design notification, operations, re-vamp, and eventual abandonment.

A safety case is assessed under three principal adequacy criteria:
- management systems to ensure compliance with statutory health and safety requirements
- arrangements for auditing and reporting
- major hazards identification, risk assessment, and control

During review, Bureau Veritas examines the basic assumptions made in the safety case as well as its content. Bureau Veritas will also take account of all relevant changes and new knowledge since acceptance or the last review, to ensure that the safety case remains valid.

Your benefits
The safety case approach has achieved substantial improvements in the management of offshore risks, with a corresponding fall in the numbers of incidents and a reduction in time and financial expenditures after accidents.

The benefit of having a safety case manager from outside the operating company is that the manager will usually have experience in numerous safety case submissions, which leads to significant expertise and efficiency in report compilation, and timely legislative approval.