Applications of Fukushima Daiichi Lessons Learned in Wells Engineering (Part I)
In the spring of 2011, while political unrest was boiling across the Middle East, a seismic event of global significance unfolded in the opposite hemisphere. A 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck in deep water off Japan’s east coast, triggering a tsunami of unprecedented scale. This one-in-100,000-year event, which was difficult to comprehend by all measures, led to numerous casualties and a significant loss at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Regardless of the details of the incident[1][2] Following the incident, the International Automatic Energy Agency (IAEA) promptly released a comprehensive guide detailing the design lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi incident. [3]. Lessons learned that could be applied effectively to our wells design to avoid cascaded events that could lead to catastrophe. The projection of these lessons learned in the drilling domain is an attempt by the author to shed light on risks that we (as drilling engineers) might overlook or, in different terms, normalize the risks and tend to ignore them. In my attempt to analyze these lessons, I found that most are already known in the process safety field of study in the oil & gas HSE industry. Kindly be aware that the author slightly alters the statements of the lessons learned to have an actual effect on the Drilling Engineering Domain:
- Shift in Safety Thinking:
- Protection against Identified Hazards
- Independence of Safety Barriers
- Clear Leadership in Crisis Management
- Continuous Improvements in the Operational Safety
(1) Shift in the Safety Thinking
Risk is identified as the multiplication of severity multiplied by probability. Risk assessment is the process of scanning and analyzing the current operation from the hazards or risks that might be present when conducting it. There are two proven methods to turn unsafe operations due to certain risks into safe ones: Risk Mitigation and Risk Prevention.
A typical bow-tie diagram shows that for every identified risk (Threat), a series of one or more independent system barriers must be in place. These barriers are the attempt of the designer to prevent the propagation of an identified risk to become a top event (Hazard). This method is risk prevention. The barriers are set independently to prevent the propagation of a risk if it occurs and cascades into a hazard. The keyword here is independent. The dependence on any of these barriers turns them into a single entity (barrier). Once one of them is crippled, it will automatically take offline the remaining barriers in place.
On the other hand, once a risk has occurred and bypassed these set barriers, a series of recovery methods must be available. These recovery methods usually use risk mitigation techniques, which, if implemented, will prevent the major hazard from cascading into a catastrophe.
A valid question will be raised: Will we ever have a risk-free operation? The direct answer is No. We will never manage to run risk-free operations. Therefore, the organization or its representative, as a project manager, must establish an acceptable risk base or a limit in which, if the prevention or mitigation of risk is managed, the risk consequence becomes acceptable.
(2) Protection Against Identified Hazards
Although it seems illogical and makes no sense, but humans forget the risk if it constantly presents itself. This behavior is a physiological defense mechanism that allows us to live under stress. This phenomenon is called Risk Normalization, which describes how we tend to ignore the risk when it has been present in the surrounding system for a long time. Moreover, this blessing of surviving is a curse from the engineering perspective. For example, think how fragile and terrified you were in the first few months after you started driving, then call the image after a couple of years when you speed up with the car. This relief that you sense later is not due to enhanced driving capabilities, since there is no guideline to measure against it, but instead, because your mind starts to normalize and cope with risks.
How do we fight back against this physiological trick?! Well, the drilling engineers must always be in a state of chronic unease concerning the process and personal safety. A state of mind that is not easy to achieve and needs practice to be reached. It is, in fact, a continuous process in which the wells engineer (the system designer) is in a continuous search and hunts for unaddressed risks within the design. Remember, this practice must be conducted in an organizational culture that allows and embraces it; without that, the shame from discovering and addressing risks in a previous design will prevent the engineer from readdressing the old designs.
This article concludes Part I. Part II will continue projecting Fukushima lessons learned in our drilling engineering domain. Make sure to follow it so you can receive it as soon as it is released.
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