Around 200 people from across the UK offshore oil and gas industry gathered at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre today (15 March 2012) to underline their commitment to hydrocarbon release reduction.

The special seminar, sponsored by Endeavour Energy and jointly organised by Step Change in Safety and Oil & Gas UK, has been held to showcase the industry’s collective work towards its target of reducing the number of hydrocarbon releases by 50% by the end of Q1, 2013.

The event was chaired by Steve Bullock and Geoff Holmes, co-chairs of Step Change's Asset Integrity Steering Group, which has been central to the co-ordination of this work.

This includes industry-wide sharing of learning and best practice, with some of the top performing companies sharing how they have successfully managed to reduce leaks.

Delegates were also updated on Step Change’s Competency Steering Group, which has been developing an industry code of practice on mechanical joint integrity, compiled using best practice in making, breaking and maintaining pipeline joints, gathered from across the industry. This work, which was launched at the event, promises to be a vital tool to help companies reduce the number of unplanned releases.

The seminar also saw the Health and Safety Executive’s Tom McLaren discuss the HSE’s thoughts on progress and expectations of the industry.

Talisman’s Geoff Holmes, co-chair of Step Change in Safety’s Asset Integrity Steering Group, said: “Hydrocarbon releases are precursors to major incidents, therefore reducing – or eliminating – this risk is an absolute priority.

“We deliberately set the bar high when, in 2010, we committed to reducing the number of hydrocarbon releases by 50%. We have already seen a reduction when HSE published their offshore safety statistics last summer but we know there is still a lot of work to do if we are going to meet this target.

“Events like this are vital because they reinforce commitment to the cause and provide another platform to widely share good practices and encourage their adoption across the UK oil and gas industry. It’s this sharing of best practice and learning which is crucial to improving long-term safety performance.”

The seminar was attended by operational managers, maintenance and integrity engineers, offshore installation managers, health and safety practitioners and safety representatives.

Find out more about hydrocarbon releases.

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