Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

I find myself starting the sixth week of work at BP and wondering where the time has gone. I can confirm that other than 2 weeks in Portugal skydiving that life has been rather sedentary.

I have been given to the programme area lead for ETAP (Eastern Trough Area Project) in the absence of any real plan. Thus far I am reading into two projects that will fall in my lap when they get handed off by the project engineer working on the first two stages of the project delivery process (Appraise and Select). I will then be responsible for the final two steps (Define and Execute).

Training

All I can say is that Chris did warn us about H&S in the industry. He wasn’t wrong, but what he didn’t prepare me for was the minimum industry training standard. Having been lulled into a false sense of security during the 3 day basic offshore safety induction and emergency training (BOSIET), which involved as much time in the heated swimming pool (not very representative of the north sea) as it did in the classroom, Nick and I were completely felled by the 2 day MIST. Essentially two days of unusually cruel torture by way of PowerPoint and a depressed American instructor!

But at least I can now go offshore.

PROJECTS

Mungo Rescue and Fire Fighting Services (RFFS)
Mungo is a normally unattended installation (NUI) that provides the topside infrastructure for the water injection equipment to enable enhanced recovery. The hydrocarbon is then piped back from Mungo to the ETAP installation, some 40kms away.
In Sep 13 the CAA initiated a safety review of offshore public transport helicopter operations
in support of the exploitation of oil and gas (CAP 1145 for those interested). It identified that fire fighting best practice for NUI had not been implemented. Therefore, Mungo is now to be fitted with an automatically activated delivery system for fire fighting foam.

There are a number of options that would meet the requirement, however, the CAA preferred solution is the installation of a deck integrated fire fighting system (DIFFS). Imagine having a permanently installed sprinkler system to water your garden and you’ve got the general idea. (Youtube link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBeNBqsVuKo)

As ever there is a wee fly in the ointment. BP’s Engineering Technical P (ETS) don’t allow for pop-up fire fighting systems. Cue the new guy working on a deviation (from the ETS).

Helideck Lighting
This task is also related to the CAA safety review. In relation to this task, the review identified that the pilots couldn’t see the helipad properly at night. So, we are going to light the helipads up like christmas trees.

Whereas the RFFS is only to be installed on Mungo, these lights will be installed on 7 installations starting with Miller, which is no longer operating but used as a hotel.

The project is towards the tail end of the Select phase (second phase of four). The trick will be getting a product out of Costain that will negate the need to do Appraise/Select for each installation. Installing the lighting on Miller is being seen as a trial and will act as a good rehearsal for the Wood Group PSN guys and girls.

Fortunately, this is not the first time it has been done there are however, a few technical limitations that have to be addressed / challenged.

Anyhow, the pictures below show what success will look like:

Helideck lighting – General

Helideck Light – Detail 1

Helideck Lights – Detail 2

And the kit we will probably use for that is:

Orga Lights