Posts Tagged ‘Shell Employee Safety’

COMMENTS FROM RETIRED ROYAL DUTCH SHELL GROUP HSE AUDITOR, BILL CAMPBELL (RIGHT) RELATING TO THE ARTICLE:

HSE feared a ‘catastrophe’ at Brent C platform

Learning after the event is a recipe for Disaster

Maybe its because he is a bean counter but Peter Voser does not seem to understand that risks need to be controlled before the event – not raised to unacceptable levels where loss of containment occurs – it would seem on a regular basis – within Shell North Sea operations and elsewhere around the World in its daily activities.

In general loss of containment, or other circumstances causing flammable atmospheres to exist, when these exist concurrent with a source of ignition causing an explosion,  is the largest cause of industrial deaths and asset damage worldwide.

Containing hydrocarbon releases into the atmosphere immediately after the event is simply not good enough and from time to time your luck runs out as witnessed by Piper Alpha, Brent Bravo and Deepwater Horizon.

Containing hydrocarbon leaks after they occur especially on a remote offshore installation is akin to gambling with the lives of those you have a duty of care to protect
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Peter Voser as quoted said: “We have had leaks, we are learning out of them, we are containing them immediately and I think that is the way to improve in the longer term.

“Our safety record has been improving all the time, not just in the UK but also on a global basis. I think we are recognised as a leader in this field.”

Nothing seems to change does it.  After all the exposure Shell have had to thousands of adverse comments on the TV, main line daily newspapers, Sunday newspapers , radio broadcasts, specialist Oil and Gas magazines and the regulator HSE, who have a full set of very blunt teeth, over the last 14 years still have the same approach.  Even the the Donovans collating the worldwide misdemeanours does not penetrate their armour.  Safety is our main concern!  We are committed to safety,  ad nauseum.  I think in Shell case being a member of “Big Oil” they have a huge publicity and legal departments that work 24/7 365 to prepare coverup statements and endless denials of extremely poor Operational Management across the entire  Global endeavour.  Basically they don’t care.

RELATED ARTICLES

Oil and gas spills in North Sea every week, papers reveal

Collusion between Shell and HSE in Brent Bravo cover-up

The UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) feared “catastrophic consequences” on Shell’s Brent Charlie platform because the scale of a long-running series of gas leaks meant ignition was “almost inevitable”, documents reveal.

ROB WATTS London  05 August 2011 01:39 GMT

Leaked documents and others obtained by Upstream under UK freedom of information (FoI) legislation shed further light on the complex safety problems Shell is battling on the ageing North Sea facility.

He said: “We have had leaks, we are learning out of them, we are containing them immediately and I think that is the way to improve in the longer term.

“Our safety record has been improving all the time, not just in the UK but also on a global basis. I think we are recognised as a leader in this field.”

“Let me be clear that safety is a key component of our thinking on how we operate our assets. We are constantly improving and we are learning,” he said.

Published: 05 August 2011 01:39 GMT  | Last updated: 05 August 2011 04:28 GMT

Victoria MacDonald   |  July 22nd, 2011

WORKSAFE Victoria will visit Shell on Monday to probe how two contractors were exposed to potentially lethal gas in a leak at the Corio oil refinery yesterday.

The National Pollutions Index advises exposure to high levels of hydrogen sulfide can lead to collapse, coma and death from respiratory failure, while prolonged exposure to lower concentrations may cause sleeplessness, blurred vision, haemorrhage and death.

SOURCE ARTICLE

JULY 6, 2011

The Shell-operated Brent Charlie platform 125 miles north-east of Lerwick is to shut down from next Friday on the orders of oil industry regulators amid continuing concerns about safety.

No oil has been pumped ashore from the installation, the hub for the Brent pipeline that comes into Sullom Voe, since January and gas production, which goes through the FLAGS pipeline to St Fergus on the north-east coast of Scotland, has been restricted to one well.

But now the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has served Shell with a legally-enforceable prohibition notice which means the operator will have to cease production entirely. An HSE spokesman declined to give details of the “safety issues” it was concerned about for legal reasons.

Separately, Shell has been asked to resubmit its safety case – a requirement for all oil and gas installations since legislation was introduced following Lord Cullen’s report into the Piper Alpha disaster of 23 years ago – after carrying out revisions.

The fact of the Brent Charlie shut down emerged after The Guardian newspaper obtained details of oil and gas leaks in the North Sea in 2009 and 2010 about which operators are obliged to inform the HSE.

Among those were seven from Brent Charlie, including the release of 4.6 tonnes of gas on 26th April 2010, which was classified as a “major” incident, meaning that if the gas had ignited many workers on the platform could have been killed.

The platform was built in the 1970s and began operating in November 1976, and is therefore among the oldest in the North Sea, but the Brent field underwent a £1.3 billion upgrade in the mid-1990s to extend its operational lifetime.

The HSE spokesman said: “HSE can confirm that a prohibition notice was served on Shell on 1st July over safety issues on the Brent C platform.” He also confirmed the regulator’s demand for Shell to resubmit its safety case for the platform.

The spokesman added: “Hydrocarbon releases are potential major hazard precursor events and the HSE, the regulator, takes them very seriously. HSE investigates all significant and major releases to establish the root cause, assess compliance with legislation and ensure that the dutyholder takes any necessary remedial action. Ensuring a reduction in hydrocarbon releases is a key priority for HSE, but it is not a new issue.

“Trends in hydrocarbon releases are down, but are showing resistance to further reductions. After being challenged by HSE, the industry agreed a target at the start of this year to reduce hydrocarbon releases by 50 per cent over the next three years. HSE expects all dutyholders to have plans in place to make that reduction happen.

“The safety record for the UK offshore industry continues to improve, with the downward trend of hydrocarbon releases being sustained in provisional figures for 2010/11. Since the tragedy of Piper Alpha, when 167 died 23 years ago today, the industry has had a strong track record which bears good comparison with Norway, who are the other big offshore sector in the North Sea.”

A spokesman for Shell said: “No spill is acceptable and we have made progress. We work closely with regulators and invested over a billion dollars in recent years to upgrade facilities across the North Sea to continue this improvement on our performance.”

SOURCE ARTICLE

LEAKED SHELL INTERNAL WARNING FROM ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC CHIEF ETHICS & COMPLIANCE OFFICER RICHARD WISEMAN (RIGHT) REGARDING THE LEAK OF THE SHELL GLOBAL ADDRESS BOOK:

I do not feel that there is any need to be alarmed

Colleagues,

I am writing to inform you of an incident involving misuse of company data.

It has become clear recently that the Global Address List, containing contact information of everyone in Shell and some contractors, joint ventures and other third parties, has been downloaded without authorisation and distributed to some external parties.  We do not know who did this.   We are investigating and are raising this theft of information with the relevant data protection authorities.  The incident is receiving some media coverage.

I do not feel that there is any need to be alarmed.  However, as a precaution, if you receive any nuisance telephone calls or e-mails then please contact your line manager, HR or security.

Whilst writing about this incident, I would like to take the opportunity to remind us all of the requirements of the Code of Conduct relating to Information Management, including data privacy and communications.

Richard Wiseman
Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer

COMMENT BY JOHN DONOVAN

I note an important inconsistency between what Richard Wiseman is saying to Shell employees compared with what he has said to me in email correspondence.  Mr Wiseman claimed in an email that there is a risk to the personal safety not only to Shell employees but “considerable numbers of people not employed by Shell but who are employed by third parties”.  Contrast this with his message to Shell employees published above. Mr Wiseman does not mention any personal risk to the safety of people listed in the directory. Instead, the worst potential consequent of the database leak is downplayed to the possibility of the listed people receiving nuisance phone calls. So who is Mr Wiseman attempting to mislead: me, or over 100,000 people in the Global Address List?

By John Donovan

As is plain from the Wikipedia article Royal Dutch Shell safety concerns, Shell has an appallingly bad track record in relation to protecting the safety of its employees. Shell’s notorious “Touch F*** All” safety culture resulted in the deaths of Shell offshore employees in an explosion on the Brent Bravo North Sea platform, and a huge fine imposed on Shell by the Scottish courts. 

Bill Campbell, the former Health and Safety Group Auditor of Shell International has campaigned against what he considers to be criminal negligence by Shell management in putting profits before safety. He has written to every UK Member of Parliament. 

The Wikipedia article cites many pledges by senior Shell management to address Shell’s abysmal safety record. 

On 31 August 2007, The Guardian newspaper published an article profiling Jeroen van der Veer (above), the Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. The article by Guardian journalist Terry Macalister stated in reference to Van der Veer: “He also makes clear he was hurt by the coverage of another fiasco – when a Shell consultant, Bill Campbell, blew the whistle on safety breaches in the North Sea.”

The admittance’s of wrongdoing and being stung by criticism, makes the news published recently on the London Fire Brigade website even more astonishing. Under the headline: “Shell fined record sum for fire safety breaches”, a press release reports that Shell International has received a record-breaking fine of £300,000 plus £45,000 in costs after pleading guilty to serious breaches of fire safety regulations. That’s over $550,000 USD. 

The safety lapses at the Shell Centre in London were so severe that the London Fire Brigade served a prohibition notice on Shell which restricted the use of the building. Assistant Commissioner Steve Turek said;

“Shell failed to respond properly to their risk assessment for three and a half years and had it not been for the fires which led to the inspection, it could have been considerably longer. Had Shell acted upon the findings of the 2003 risk assessment at the time, they would have avoided putting their staff at risk.”

Sentencing of Shell International Limited took place at Inner London Crown Court on 2 June 2009 after Shell pleaded guilty to three breaches of safety regulations.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Shell senior execs should spend time dealing with employee safety issues rather than devoting it to inflating and trying to defend Fat Cat pay packages, including unearned bonus payments and grossly inappropriate pension pots. Unfortunately, greed wins out over the lives of mere employees. 

Some of the above are extracts from the London Fire Brigade Press Release. There are also extracts from the Wikipedia article. 

When asked if the refinery could possibly be criminally liable if safety lapses are discovered, Fryer said that would be up to the Contra Costa County District Attorney to decided.

Shell – investigated by the HSE 207 times in the past three years – insisted that safety remains “paramount”. A spokesman said: “Our reliability trends, hydrocarbon release trends and spill trends have improved year-on-year since 2004, reflecting the increased levels of investment and operational scrutiny.”

The Financial Times reported last month that Royal Dutch Shell had the highest mortality rate of any large western oil company, with two employees and 28 contractors dying in the line of duty in 2007.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA LN): Europe’s largest oil producer last year suffered more workforce deaths than any other large western oil company, the Financial Times reported, citing figures the newspaper compiled from company reports. Shell advanced 5 pence, or 0.3 percent, to 1738 pence.

BLOOMBERG ARTICLE