BP AND SHELL ‘NOT MEETING SAFETY STANDARDS ON NORTH SEA OIL RIGS'

RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: may 2010 :: RMTnews 15 B P and other oil companies operating in the North Sea have been warned by the Health and Safety Executive that they are failing to operate rigs and other offshore equipment to appropriate standards. The "improvement notices" from the offshore regulator come as RMT regional organiser Jake Molloy revealed provisional safety statistics for 2009 that showed a deterioration in major injuries and hydrocarbon releases on the previous year. He said that safety had been compromised after operators and drillers slashed pay, for drill rig workers by up to a fifth last year, in response to oil prices of less than $40 a barrel last January. "Drill workers feel they're being sold short. “They undergo training and do the work, yet the reward they get is a massive pay cut and that is not good for safety culture on rigs," he said, "especially when rig day rates remain at an all time high". RMT members have reacted angrily to the Offshore Contractors Association about an offer of a 1.8 per cent pay increase this year, Molloy said this disguised cuts in entitlements such as travel expenses and sick pay. Jake Molloy accepted that standards – at least before last year's cost cuts – had begun to improve, but took issue with how some of the figures are calculated. For example, he said the number of man hours lost to accidents is massaged by operators assigning rig workers suffering relatively minor injuries to office work, meaning they are excluded from the Lost Time Injury category. He also said that recommendations from Cullen following the Piper Alpha disaster – that killed 167 workers – which called on the workforce to be given a much larger role in safety had been ignored. One ‘safety alert’ listed on relevant section of the HSE website posted on April 6 also calls on all North Sea operators to check the pipeline emergency shut-down valves (ESDV) that were made mandatory after Lord Cullen's investigation into the Piper Alpha platform fire 22 years ago. The valves are designed to stop the flow of oil and gas. The HSE says the alert follows the failure of an emergency shut-down valve and says "other ESDVs have been found to be at risk of failing in this manner". DEEPWATER HORIZON Questions have also raised as to why BP had apparently not installed emergency shutdown valves on the blown-out well of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which has left US southern states facing an environmental and economic catastrophe. Most of the 126 people on the rig escaped safely after the explosion, but 11 workers are missing after an explosion and fire, presumed dead. Around 5,000 barrels of oil a day have been pumping unchecked into the sea since the rig exploded. US lawmakers and regulators in Washington are also asking why the company had not installed a so-called "acoustic switch" on the blowout preventer, which is on the seabed and designed to stop pressure from the oil well damaging the drilling rig and can be activated remotely. BP have started drilling – or "spudding" – a new relief well half a mile away from the site of the Deepwater Horizon. It will run its new well alongside the Deepwater's excavations, down to 18,000 feet, in the hope that it can intercept the flow of oil and relieve pressure on the damaged wellhead. But it will take two to three months to get down to the right depth. In that time, half a million barrels of oil could have escaped – 19 million gallons or almost twice the amount that ravaged the coastline of Alaska 21 years ago when the Exxon Valdez ran aground. BP AND SHELL ‘NOT MEETING SAFETY STANDARDS ON NORTH SEA OIL RIGS' CATASTROPHE: Deepwater Horizon oil rig sinks ablaze in the Gulf of Mexico