Lifting behavior to new heights
  from: Offshore Engineer
  by: Jennifer Pallanich
  Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Cranes have long posed risks to people and equipment on offshore platforms. These necessary lifters can be operated safely, but the question is how to improve the overall safety levels of crane activity in the industry. Jennifer Pallanich reports on the topic following a crane safety conference in Houston.

While regulatory bodies set out guidelines for crane safety, the offshore oil industry is also attacking the issue from another angle: behavior.

The US Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimates that a nearly a quarter of all US outer continental shelf (OCS) fatalities between 1995 and 2006 were related to cranes and personnel, pipe or material handling, according to Tom Perry, an MMS industrial specialist in the accident investigation board.

‘We knew this was a problem 10 years ago,’ he said during the API’s 2007 Offshore Crane Operations & Safety Conference in Houston, which focused on behavior as a means to prevent accidents.

While the number of fatalities and incidents has stabilized, it is still at a high level. Between 1995 and 2006, operators reported 300 crane-related incidents from the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific and Alaska OCS regions to the MMS. Those reports represent 104 injuries and 11 fatalities. The MMS estimates that based on these reports, the industry sustains equipment damage of at least $330,000 each year. Perry says the most disturbing outcome is boom collapse due to overloading and human error.

He says the MMS is working with the industry to identify problems with crane operations as well as non-crane activity to determine the factors that led to the incidents, and work to create awareness.

The question, says Stan Owens, senior account executive at Behavioral Science Technology, comes down to why people do what they do.

‘What is really influencing people?’ he asks. Most people make their decisions based on perceived consequences, such as saving time, especially if it is viewed as a certain outcome. ‘The consequences that are soon, certain, and positive are the most powerful. If we’re going to change behavior, we have to know what’s triggering the behavior.’

Feedback seems to be one of the most meaningful methods of changing behavior, Owens says, because it increases self observation. This is in line with ExxonMobil’s beliefs, says Phil Marquez, safety – special projects for ExxonMobil Production, although the supermajor doesn’t restrict itself to feedback.

‘Behavior-based safety is not a standalone safety process,’ Marquez says. For example, he says, if an employee does a job in an at-risk manner without getting hurt, that employee is likely to repeat the behavior as it is no longer seen as a risk.

He says the company observes places where problems occur. But the most important tool is a behavior job safety analysis that spells out each step in any job process, he says. This tool, however, is of no use if everyone on the job doesn’t review – and understand – it, he adds.

ExxonMobil’s last line of defense is its ‘Stepback 5x5’ program that urges the employee to step back from a job and spend some time thinking about the job, the protective gear, and so forth, before proceeding, Marquez says.

In the US OCS, API 2C regulates the purchase or building of offshore cranes. 2D was last updated in 2004.

‘It was a major update for floating platforms,’ said Randy Long, vice president at Stress Engineering Services and the chairman of the 2004 2C update task group.

He says the update seems to be working well as far as floating platforms go, but some areas seem to need clarification. The committee is deliberating on some issues and may offer an update, either in the form of errata, a clarification, or a full update, he says. These areas, he says, include creating consistency between safety factors for boom lift cylinder burst/buckling; reintroducing gearbox and similar equipment rating guidelines; and clarifying wording in certain sections of the update.

The 2C update from 2004 may be considered old news to those who are still familiarizing themselves with the May 2007 update of API 2D, which ensures the crane remains safe once it’s built and purchased. The latest version of 2D includes an entire section, Appendix I, that specifies how temporary offshore cranes should be installed. Robert Guidry, Chevron’s GoM crane coordinator and chair of the API 2D update committee, noted the importance of having qualified people review every phase of the installation process. He says it’s also vital to test and inspect cranes, both before and after lifts.

But comments from the UKCS show that just having a fine set of regulations in place won’t keep people safe.

‘A guidance is only doing some good if you actually put it into practice,’ says Iain Paterson, HM principal inspector in the mechanical engineering section of the UK Health & Safety Executive’s offshore division, citing the fact that about a quarter of installations inspected off the UK didn’t adequately control their lifting operations. It’s important, he says, to have an outside confirmation or oversight of the installation.

When it comes to planning, Dalton McCaffrey, structural engineer at EDG, says he prefers to go straight to the platform to plan any lifting operation from a temporary crane. ‘It’s cheap insurance,’ he says, noting that sometimes platform plans can be outdated.

Just as McCaffrey likes to get out on the platform and see the site for himself, Brad Closson, principal engineer for Craft Forensic Services, has his own method for planning a lift – or investigating an accident if need be. He uses polar plotting to define physical issues that might impede natural movement. He sees polar plotting as a useful tool in predicting crane movements, since cranes can move up, down, side to side, and forward and backward.

‘We have to deal with all of those directions,’ Closson says. ‘You’d be surprised about how often you have to go over info and go over it before you get it right.’

The companies that operate in the GoM all have their own systems of planning lifts.

‘Each of our different lift categories requires a different amount of planning,’ says Jacob Reidenbach, BP’s GoM SPU lifting and hoisting specialist. ‘We’ve gotten very serious about “Stop the job” if something becomes unsafe.’

Gerard ‘Vic’ Victoriano of Chevron says that while moving personnel may be a regular occurrence, it should never be considered routine.

In fact, he says: ‘There is no such thing as a routine lift.’ Circumstances such as weather or staff change, so no two lifts are exactly the same, he says. The crane operator ‘may not be in charge of the entire operation, but when it comes time to make that lift, he’s in charge’.

Changing numbers

An MMS rule change on incident reporting requirements from July 2006 dictates all incidents involving crane and personnel and material handling operations need to be reported to MMS. Near misses aren’t required, but if a person needs to leave the platform for first aid treatment, a report is necessary. As a result, the numbers of incidents for 2005 and years previous will be much lower than from 2006 onward.

‘Injuries went up because we lowered our threshold of what we want you to report,’ Perry says.

However, it appears that even the changed reporting threshold might not be the only factor in jumping numbers for 2006, reflected in the UK continental shelf as well.

‘Unfortunately, the trend in crane incidents is rising slightly,’ Paterson says. He attributes the continuing increase to higher activity rates.

USCG Lt Commander Jeff Wolfe says ‘crane incidents and accidents still continue to be a recognizable percentage of all the casualties’ that the USCG investigates. He urges transparency in the industry to help prevent further accidents from occurring. The whole industry can learn from each incident, he says.

‘Just because someone has a crane incident doesn’t make them a bad operator or bad drilling company,’Wolfe says. OE

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