The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) has released its Annual Offshore Performance Report for the year ending 31 December 2016.
“2016 was the first year since the establishment of a national safety regulator in 2005 that no fatalities or major injuries were reported,” said Stuart Smith, chief executive officer of NOPSEMA.
“Despite another challenging year of falling oil and gas prices, it was encouraging to see improvement in many safety indicators,” Smith said.
In 2016, the number of dangerous occurrences reported fell by 17% compared with 2015, with the majority relating to unplanned events. Analysis of the dangerous occurrences indicates that the vast majority required the implementation of emergency response plans and were the result of false alarms or inadvertent manual call point activation because of human activities.
“These causes may provide reassurance to some, but NOPSEMA is concerned about the frequency of the occurrences and the risk of workforce complacency,” Smith said.
An increase in public scrutiny regarding ongoing and proposed offshore oil and gas activities featured strongly in 2016. The increased scrutiny reflects changing community expectations around consultation, engagement, and transparency by the industry.