Oil safety drill rolls out

The Life: An oil and gas standards body has just launched a new global initiative which is designed to drastically improve safety standards across the industry.

John Rowley, the chief executive of Atlas Interactive, is rolling out a training programme tailored to suit individual needs. Silvia Razgova / The National

On the morning of that fateful day, bosses from the oil and gas giant BP arrived on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to celebrate seven years of operations without serious injury.

Just hours later, however, a massive explosion ripped through the rig, killing 11 workers and causing one of the largest accidental marine oil spills in history.

"The tragedy has shaken the sector and put the spotlight firmly back on safety and workforce competence," says David Doig, the group chief executive of the Offshore Petroleum Industry Training Organisation (Opito). "While there is a level of knowledge and good practice within the existing workforce there is a clear desire in the industry for uniformity when it comes to the safety and competency of its people."

In response to the demand for stricter standards, Opito recently launched the International Minimum Industry Safety Training (Imist) course. It is designed to improve the industry's standards globally by ensuring that every worker who takes the course has the same basic knowledge of safety.

"It's about having a single standard globally," said Ian Laing, the managing director of Opito International, during the course's recent global launch in Abu Dhabi.

The course, which must be carried out at a testing centre and renewed every four years, contains nine training modules, including an introduction to environmental hazards and safe working practices. It also contains a special formula that assesses the workers existing knowledge and then tailors the course to their specific needs. "Once we understand what the knowledge is, we can then adapt the course for that individual. Everyone is different," says John Rowley, the chief executive of Atlas Interactive, a company that is rolling out the programme.

"It makes sure that an individual doesn't just do a three-hour course just for the sake of it. We can focus on the individual gaps in their learning, which speeds up the whole process."

Imist was developed from another programme in the UK known as the Minimum Industry Safety Training (Mist) in response to demand from global oil and gas operators, including some based in the UAE. But Mist is seen as being "too UK-centric", says Mr Laing. "It is based on UK laws, regulations and standards. We extracted all of the UK references and made it more generic so it can be used globally."

Imist is the only standard of its type to bring together all nine modules of basic safety training. "It means that worldwide there will be a global cohort of workers with an Imist qualification, so it will speed up recruitment and reduce the need for continual training as well," says Mr Rowley.

But the training will not be mandatory. Companies will decide whether to put their employees through the course, which costs US$99 (Dh363.60) per person, or about $11 a module. Mr Laing says Mist training is not mandatory in the UK either, but workers are unable to travel offshore there without it.

Imist is being rolled out first in the Middle East, where almost a third of the estimated 1.5 million people employed in oil and gas exploration and production worldwide are based. South East Asia will be next, followed by the Gulf of Mexico. Individual countries will then follow these larger regions. While the international version is available only in English, Opito says it is looking at developing versions in Arabic, Hindi and Urdu.

Dev Hazarika, the global quality manager for Weatherford, an oilfield services provider, attended the launch in Abu Dhabi and says training for the nine global standards will be valuable. "This is a major step for the industry to set a minimum training standard in safety, which is becoming a huge challenge with the exposure of various risks nowadays," he says.