A SPARK FROM DISASTER

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april 2012 :: RMTnews 11 Last month a well on the Total UK operated Elgin Platform “G4” began spewing out gas at a rate of approximately seven tonnes an hour. And as RMT News goes to press the gas continues to flow. This is an unprecedented event in the North Sea, because the gas is flowing freely with no physical way of stopping it by normal means such as closing a valve or using an emergency shutdown system. It is suspected the gas is entering the outer casings of the well several thousand feet below the sea bed and is flowing up these outer casings to the platform. As the gas began to leak the platform was immediately shut down and the Offshore Installation Manager (OIM), realising the seriousness of the problem, began an immediate evacuation. In little over three and a half hours, through a combination of helicopters from the RAF and Norwegian sources, over 200 workers were taken to safety. The OIM and Total are to be commended for their rapid reactions, and every member involved in this event has praised the OIM for the way he handled the emergency. However we still have some concerns about the period leading up to this event. Total has confirmed that irregular pressure ‘spikes’ were being recorded in the “annuli” (gaps between the outer casings) from mid-February. After several attempts to ‘manage’ these increasing pressures a decision was taken to “kill” the well. This is a process where fluids are pumped into the annuli to suppress the pressures and ultimately eliminate any potential for gas or anything else coming back up any area of the well. It was during this process that the pressure spikes increased dramatically and subsequently gas began leaking. Workers tell us the OIM briefed them on the well problems they were experiencing and the obvious question was asked - ‘what happens if the well fails, will we get gas on the platform?’ The OIM sought the advice of the Technical Authorities on this question, the engineers onshore, and the response apparently was - ‘if the well fails it will happen several thousand feet below the seabed because there is a fail safe system designed into the well.’ Clearly this was not the case, so were the safety reps and the OIM given the wrong information? Or did the “failsafe” itself fail? Many questions remain to be answered about how the problem occurred, how it was ‘managed’ and what information was passed to the safety reps and management onboard the installation. If we assume the information received from members is accurate, we would expect to see the Health and Safety Executive reflect on these issues in their investigations. This is crucial as it may yet be another example of how the offshore workforce is ‘disengaged’ from the decision-making processes affecting their day to day health and safety. RMT has been actively campaigning for greater workforce involvement of workers in the health and safety decision making process. The union was recently at the forefront of a successful campaign convincing the industry that offshore safety representatives should be given more training to aid greater involvement and ownership of the health and safety agenda. RMT also submitted a report to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) calling for greater powers for offshore safety representatives as part of their offshore regulatory review. RMT maintains that the actual “risk-takers”, the workforce, our members, should be empowered through knowledge and education to be truly involved in every decision making process from the board room to the tea-shack. The union considers this to be entirely reasonable, given they face scenarios like the Elgin incident where, had the gas found an ignition source, we could have been looking at a major disaster. A SPARK FROM DISASTER As gas continues to escape the Elgin offshore platform RMT organiser Jake Molloy warns that workforce involvement in health and safety matters is vital