Offshore staff
HOVIK, Norway – DNV GL has published a report on emergency preparedness solutions in the Norwegian sector of Arctic Ocean.
The report “Emergency response for offshore operations in theBarents Sea” examines the impact of wind speed, wave height, and sea ice on potential evacuation and rescue resources in the area, and assesses the long-range rescue capability provided by search and rescue helicopters.
It identifies challenges for offshore installations that include: sea spray icing, darkness, lack of offshore infrastructure, long distances between installations and support sites, sea ice, low temperatures, and wind chill.
“Many questions about emergency response in the north have remained unanswered. We aim to help close that gap with this research,” said Liv Hovem, senior vice president and director of division - Europe and Africa, DNV GL - Oil & Gas.
“Our findings indicate that new emergency response concepts and technologies might be needed in more remote areas of the Barents Sea which are far from the coast and existing infrastructure.
“A coordinated approach to exploration activities in remote areas would help ensure safe offshore operations in the Barents Sea. Operators could share emergency response resources and their associated costs to ensure sufficient response capacity.”
DNV GL is additionally starting a new joint industry project (JIP) for Qualification of Arctic Emergency Response Concepts.
The aim is to determine which types of emergency concepts provide a satisfactory level of safety, while at the same time comparing the economic feasibility of the different concepts.
The work will likely be based on the same approach adopted for development of the company’sArctic Risk Map and PREGA, a tool to assess oil spill response gaps. It will focus on developing quantitative methods for analyzing and visualizing the performance of different emergency preparedness concepts.
03/12/2015
