The oil and gas industry is continuously transforming as focus increases on new technologies (machine learning, the Internet of things, and distributed ledger technology such as blockchain) to carry the transformation to the next stage. Currently, blockchain technology is used frequently in the financial and logistics sectors; however, its practical use to manage health, safety, and environment aspects of industry remains relatively unexplored.
The focus of a safety management system is to evaluate hazards and decrease risks with an assurance that the identified safeguards are effective. All the elements of a process safety management program are interlinked, so a failure of one element will adversely affect the efficacy of the overall process safety management program.
The effectiveness of a process safety management program depends on many factors, such as management support, personnel participation, and effective and tamper-proof data management and reporting. So, a considerable number of resources are required to set up and manage these systems.
This paper explores the use of blockchain and distributed ledgers to effectively manage elements of a process safety management program with a major focus on integrity management for the oil and gas industry. The paper focuses on six core elements; however, the discussion could be applied to other elements of process safety management. The paper provides an overview of blockchain’s application to different elements of process safety management, discussing the pros and cons. It also provides a detailed scoping of the application of blockchain and distributed ledgers for integrity management.