DROPS Forum - Aberdeen, 26th February 2014

DROPS UK Forum minutes

Marcliffe Hotel, Aberdeen

Greg Reid opened the Forum, provided a Safety Brief and round-the-room introductions were made.

DROPS Update - Greg Reid, DROPS:
Membership: 
Since last Forum Delighted to welcome the following new DROPS members:

• Addax Petroleum Ltd - Switzerland 
• Qatargas Operating Company - Qatar
• Gridin's Group - Lithuania
• SPS-Sindbad Petroleum Services - Egypt
• Orange Offshore AS Norway (rejoined) - Norway
• Oilfield Integrity Management (OIM) - UK
• EnQuest - UK
• Exalo Drilling - Poland

DROPS International:
DROPS North America forum in Houston on 26th June. Details on website soon.
DROPS Asia will host events in Singapore (May), China and Indonesia this year. Their Steering Committee has been boosted with inclusion of 3 Operators: Talisman, Shell and Chevron (Bob Thomson). Minutes of their Brunei forum are now posted on website. Details of future DROPS Asia events will be presented on our website with details and registration also on www.dropsasia.com

A Middle East DROPS Forum will be held in Oman on 31st March. Sponsored by PDO, Sea and Land Drilling, Dalma, KCA and Weatherford. See website for details and contact DROPS Secretary to register.

Keep an eye on the “Events” section at www.dropsonline.org for latest details of all upcoming events.

DROPS Training:
Since last forum, several UK DROPS Train-the-Trainer sessions have been held at Silverdot’s offices including one session yesterday and another tomorrow. See the DROPS Training section of www.dropsonline.org for details of all upcoming training
International training is being held on March 3rd in Houston and March 31st in Oman. Contact training@dropsonline.org for further details and to register. 
Further DROPS training is being planned for Sakhalin, Holland, USA, Canada and South East Asia.

2014 European DROPS Forums:
The remaining 2014 UK DROPS Forums will all be held in Aberdeen at the Marcliffe Hotel on: Tuesday 29th April, Thursday 4th September and Thursday 27th November. Alternative venues are being explored for Aberdeen Forums in 2015 and beyond 2015.A 
The annual Norway Forum date and venue will be announced at next Forum.
A Forum will be held in Copenhagen in the autumn. Details will be posted to web in due course.

Today’s Presenters:
Many thanks to our Presenters: Web Rigging Services, our regular HSE update, Chevron, Snap-On.

We will also hear from our Focus Groups, and Allen Smith will discuss the way ahead for DORIS

We will close with an open floor session giving each of you an opportunity to comment, raise an issue, seek feedback etc

Safety Alerts and Lessons Learned:
A number of Alerts and Lessons Learned will be presented today. These presentations will be made available to download from the website along with brief minutes of today’s proceedings.

We issued an MSF Alerts to all members last month - a 21kg chain guide that fell and struck a deck crew member.

Unfortunately, we have had news of a recent dropped object incident in that resulted in a fatality. However, we are unable to share any details at this stage pending formal investigations.

Caspian Drilling have shared an incident. A latched indicator rod which was welded to the elevators, weighing 523grams and 9.1 inches long, fell 27 m and landed 7.7m from the rotator table. A Red Area was set but however the object landed in a green unrestricted area. The incident is ongoing but because it was a welded object the indicator bar was not identified as a potential DROPS issue and there was no need for secondary retention. This has now been addressed and secondary retention has been fitted. This incident could have potentially been a fatality and has been classed as a HiPo.

Please continue to share alerts and lessons learned with us. Similarly, if you would like to discuss or recommend a presentation / speaker, please contact admin@dropsonline.org

DROPS Backroom:
Rogue’s Gallery - we will look to refresh Aberdeen Heliports displays in conjunction with Shell. ADC also expressed interest in supporting this initiative.
Reliable Securing Booklets all issued. Updates will now be reflected across all our best practices along with greater clarity on DROPS Red Zones versus Red Zones (Restricted Access Areas). Any help with translations gratefully accepted. Thanks to Egyptian Drilling for Arabic and Tesco Corp for Russian translations. DROPS to meet SfS Norway to discuss this guidance.

Our Campaign Pack updates are now being issued and you can take yours away today. All others are being posted. Pack holds prompt cards, calculators, new Reliable Securing plus all DROPS products and presentations to date, including DVDs templates etc.

Greg’s accompanying update presentation (including the indicator rod safety alert) is available to download here.

Product Demonstration - Gordon Bisset, Web Rigging Services
Gordon gave a presentation on WEB NET systems. The system is a passive containment zone for dropped objects. It’s a high strength netting system that creates a barrier. The presentation included variations of many potential dropped objects and showed how they have designed the WEB NET to adjust and fit to capture falling items. Some examples pictures were shown / discussed and some of the benefits and results were highlighted. The rigging has potentially 80% less components used in its construction to contain an area as compared to scaffolding. Several different derrick containments were shown that allowed operations to continue whilst dropped object inspections etc were carried out. Steel mesh sheets are also being used on various rigs offshore to contain the corroded wind walls whilst repair works on these areas are carried out. The product materials, design and testing were clarified and shared with the members. For more information, please see website www.webrsl.co.uk or email directly sales@webrsl.co.uk

HSE Update - Donald Dobson, HSE
Presented were the HSE statistics as analysed by Donald. The figures included items up to this week and the trend demonstrates that 2014 is on par with 2013. From January to date, 12 incidents have occurred. Further analysis of these incidents showed that on the rig floor, 3 were due to dropped objects within Derrick and Well Operations. These incidents included a shackle pin (10.6kg) falling 10m to the rig floor during high wind and a 90kg tubing joint dropped 6m to the rotary table. Statistics from “Cranes and Lifting” were shown where a couple of incidents were recorded already for 2014. These were a hose parting and falling 25m to the sea, and a corroded section of handrail (54kg) falling 15m to the crane roof. There were 7 other dropped objects incidents recorded so far in 2014 that did not fall into the previous categories and some of these included a support bracket (14kg) that suffered a weld failure and landed on the mezzanine deck, and part of a platform sign (15kg) that blew off and fell 30m to the walkway. Donald’s presentation is available to download here.

Incident Presentation - Craig Watson. Chevron
Craig shared an incident where a mud saver valve sheared off and fell 45ft to the rig floor. There was a known misalignment and the driller had made some compensation for this. To help prevent this type of incident from occurring again, the following should be considered:

• ensure checks are undertaken to confirm alignment of the mud saver valve with the casing;
• a risk assessment should ensure that the hazard of dropped objects is identified and suitable mitigations are in place;
• the overdrive console should be situated outwith the Red Zone or provided with protection;

Lift nubbins for use in combination with the unit have undergone a thorough design review. The overdrive unit is now used remotely and cages have now been built to protect the fall-back zone. The unit now has a guide to prevent this kind of incident taking place. Craig’s presentation is not currently available for sharing.

Dropped Objects - Phil Brown, ASCO
Phil presented a range of actual dropped and discarded objects that have arisen in his sphere of activity so far in 2014. Several of the items had been left on the ledges of half-height containers, prompting Phil to question if a design solution could help with this problem. Phil confirmed that for marine / cargo operations, 70% of dropped objects are associated with backloading from offshore to the quayside. Phil’s objects will be added to the exhibits in the Aberdeen Heliports Rogues Gallery cabinets.

DORIS Update - Allen Smith, DROPS
Allen provided the members with a background update on what DORIS was designed for and the challenges the system faces moving forward. DORIS currently holds details of 183 actual dropped objects and many more potential dropped objects. There is a great level of information on each incident but to realise the true value of DORIS, it needs far more data and input. Presently, it is estimated that less than 5% of member data is populated. After open floor discussion, general consensus is that DORIS is a great tool and there is a desire to move forward, but on a Regional basis, ie UK Sector or North Sea. A Focus Group will be re-established to kick this off and explore the best way forward. The data input functionality has been updated and several bugs addressed such that any DROPS members wishing view or add anonymous data can do so via the DROPS website. Members requiring a username and password should email doris@dropsonline.org.
Allen’s presentation is available to download here.

Tools@Height E-Learning - Nick Mighall, Snap-on
Nick gave the audience an overview of Snap-on’s new online e-learning Training and Certification system that they have in place for Tools@Height. The system is offered as a low cost and accessible solution to encourage tool control and raise awareness of potential risks. It can be customised and the system produces a Certificate of Achievement at the end of the course. There is an online video demo that was handed out in DVD format to the audience along with other literature that was made available for members. The presentation is available to download here. For more information, please email elearning@snapon.com.

DROPS Focus Group Updates - Focus Group Leaders
The Focus Group Leaders provided the following updates:

Reliable Securing: Revision 3 is available now and copies were provided for all attendees. We have been provided with translated versions from a number of members, namely Tesco with a Russian translation and EDC who are providing an Arabic translation. Any organisation that can assist with translating is encouraged to contact us at admin@dropsonline.org. If you have any feedback on this booklet, please email admin@dropsonline.org. A screen resolution copy of the booklet can be accessed here. The Russian translation can be downloaded here. A high resolution version has been issued to all members via their DROPS Campaign Pack updates and printed booklets are available to purchase (see Products section of www.dropsonline.org). This Focus Group has successfully concluded its remit and thanks were extended to all those involved

Back-loading: Colin Esslemont explained that the group are currently looking at tagging systems. They are also working on a backloading booklet representing industry’s best practice and this will be made available to all members. The Group will update us at next UK DROPS Forum.

Asset Integrity: An update will be provided at the April UK forum.

DROPS Competency: Alistair Tong provided an update to the attendees. A Competency Roadmap has been developed and the group would like to determine how to establish that, through training, people will demonstrate that they are competent when providing standard inspection. Defined minimum standards and elements are proposed with the ultimate goal of gaining OPITO approval. A presentation will be made to the DROPS Steering Committee before opening discussions with OPITO. The Group will provide an update at next Forum. Any feedback to the team is welcome via secretary@dropsonline.org. Alistair’s presentation is available to download here.

Open Floor and Any Other Business

Greg thanked everyone for their participation and invited the attendees to raise any issues for further discussion in the open floor session.

A member commented that a powerful message from DORIS is that the potential dropped objects submitted to the database are a positive message that demonstrate the DROPS initiative is working.

Centrica expressed interest in sponsoring a Rogues Gallery at Humberside and Blackpool.

A question was directed to the back-loading focus group, asking if contact could be made with manufacturers and suppliers of half-height units to see if design changes could be influenced. Members were invited to suggest methods or contacts to engage the manufacturers and any recommendations should be sent via admin@dropsonline.org.

Next European DROPS Forum:

Date: Tuesday 29 April 2014
Time: 0945-1230 
Venue: Marcliffe Hotel, Aberdeen 
Host: DROPS Global Steering Committee