In an era of economic downturn and volatile oil prices, safety culture and budgets come under pressure. Though companies claim safety remains a top priority, the fact is that budgets are not without limits. Aside from the desire to protect life and limb, loss control incidents can affect a company in a number of ways. Direct financial losses result from shutdowns and remedial work, and accidents can damage a company’s reputation and impact worker morale.

Any business aiming at long-term viability must focus on the careful assessment of risk, followed by the intelligent application of resources.

Improving safety

Scrutinizing budgets is not intrinsically wrong; money can be misspent, even on safety. At times, spending decisions are based on historic perceptions of where risk lies. However, when resources are tight, it is all the more important to look at hard data — activity levels, number of incidents, injuries, and fatalities — to get a clear picture of the priorities.

The next step is to consider the intelligent allocation of resources, which should be applied not merely to where the problems lie, but to where they will have the greatest impact on improvement. At times, this can lead to counterintuitive conclusions, suggesting resources be moved from higher ranking risks (with less scope for improvement) to lower ranking risks, where additional resources can make a greater impact.

A good example is the offshore industry’s shift toward minimal manning and normally uninhabited installations. Instead of channeling massive investment to designing safer processes and emergency contingencies, the solution was to remove personnel from the proximity of risk.

In a more specific case, an operator performing crew transfers in harsh conditions over water that was only 39ºF (4ºC) realized personnel were not wearing sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE), a situation that would have proven fatal if they had been immersed in the sea. Improved PPE, secured at a relatively small cost, dramatically reduced this risk.

Transfers and savings

Each year helicopters transfer around 10 million passengers, many of them offshore crews. Because helicopters are a mature transfer method, it may require quantum leaps in processes and technology to fundamentally alter the risk equation. On the other hand, marine transfer, which accounts for 5 million transfers, has traditionally received a small fraction of the resources provided for aviation activities.

The simple process of logging and collating data would build risk awareness for marine transfers and provide an excellent foundation for improved practice.

Very modest investments in improved operational controls, training, and equipment might well result in a considerable risk reduction. A number of operators, most notably in West Africa, Southeast Asia, the Caspian, and Canada have taken important steps to professionalize their marine transfer activities. This has included a re-examination of risk data, which has indicated marine transfer operations are already at a lower risk than is often perceived.

In the North Sea, marine transfers could be viable within clusters of platforms and indeed have been used to provide safe and effective inter-field transfer. Marine transfer also could be applicable in the Southern North Sea and other areas were platforms are closer to shore and voyage times are shorter in sea conditions less harsh than those in the northern sector.

There are grounds to suggest that the industry is entering a new era for offshore crew supply. Recent international developments in marine based crew supply are changing the entire perspective of risk and logistical efficiency. Seacor Marine’s new CrewZer class of vessel, complemented by a purpose-built transfer solution in the form of Reflex Marine’s nine-passenger Frog crew transfer device, was designed to provide a superior service to helicopter operations in terms of safety, speed, and passenger comfort. With passenger transfer rates demonstrated at up to 125/hr, the system offers a competitive alternative to helicopter crew supply, including estimated cost savings of around 30%. The CrewZer/Frog solution has been used offshore West Africa and is now being used by a major operator in the Caspian region.

Marine crew transfer provides a viable option where progressive operators are seeking to develop an improved understanding of risk, and to developing strategies to provide the greatest impact on safety for each dollar invested. Achieving improved safety performance usually requires good data, but achieving true best in class performance also requires a creative approach to operational decision making to get the most out of limited resources.