HSE OFFSHORE HYDROCARBON RELEASES GO ONLINE

HSE press release E131:03 - 14 July 2003

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) today launched the online version of the Offshore Hydrocarbon Releases (HCR) System. The HCR System contains detailed voluntary information on offshore hydrocarbon release incidents supplementary to that provided under RIDDOR (and previous offshore legislation prior to April 1996).

The new web-based version of this System, funded by HSE and the UK Offshore Operators Association (UKOOA), will allow duty holders and other authorised industry users direct access to the system to submit incident reports to the HSE database via online interactive forms. HCR statistical information is made available in the form of standard reports, which generate graphs and/or tables online as required. The facility to download data is also provided.

The offshore industry and HSE need to monitor offshore hydrocarbon releases, since these are widely seen as the offshore equivalent of the Signals Passed at Danger (SPADs) hazard on railways. Failure to monitor and react to any upward trend or plateau in HCR statistics could represent a significant risk to those working offshore.

The HCR System may be accessed from the Offshore Sector pages of the HSE website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/offshore/hydrocarbon.htm and for an initial three month period from an icon on the HSE website home page at http://www.hse.gov.uk. The HCR System home page gives general details of the site, including a table and graph which illustrate current reporting trends, plus a help file describing the various features of the system.

Since the data contained in the System database belongs to installation owners and volunteered on the understanding that any published outputs would be generic and non-attributable, access to the full system is by authorised user/password only. However, free online HCR data such as the latest Offshore Hydrocarbon Release Statistics report, or guidance on reporting of hydrocarbon releases will remain accessible via the HSE website.

Commenting on the new system, Taf Powell, head of HSE's Offshore Division, said:

"There are substantial benefits to be gained by both HSE and industry in using this system. The interactive forms and online help should increase the quality of data submitted, and the speed of submission will greatly shorten the turn around time for reports compared to the current paper-based method of reporting."

Mr Powell added: "Online statistics will also prove beneficial to offshore industry managers, since these will be much more up to date than is possible with the current method. Industry will now be able to monitor progress on hydrocarbon leak reduction, not only generically, but they will also see details of their own company's performance."

Ian Morrison (Shell) Chairman of the UKOOA Hydrocarbon Leak Reduction Sub-Committee, and industry representative on the HCR Project Board said:

"Today marks the culmination of a highly successful and productive period of co-operation between the HSE and UKOOA. The new system is a definite 'win-win' for all, reducing some of the paperwork and admin bureaucracy while at the same time greatly improving the ease of access to much more timely data and analysis. Our ability to track performance and identify trends will be significantly enhanced, as will our ability to respond quickly with effective improvement measures. This will allow us to build further on the excellent improvement we have achieved in reducing releases in the past two years."

Bob Kyle, Safety Issues Manager, UKOOA, added:

"UKOOA has been pleased to support the enhancement of this HSE database and the use of the internet to help both the industry and regulator in speeding up the reporting and analysis of hydrocarbon releases. This is another milestone in the overall joint industry/HSE campaign to further improve the safety of our offshore installations."

Taf Powell concluded by saying:

"It is not just platform management, HSE and process designers and manufacturers that benefit from this world-leading development. The workforce and their safety representatives can also be appraised of the progress in reducing hydrocarbon leaks on a real time basis and will no longer need to await annual official reports. I expect this facility to strengthen the impact of partnership of HSE, installation owners and workforce on reducing risks of leaks even further and more quickly than hitherto, though improvement over the last two years has been impressive."

Notes to editors

1. The HCR System was created in response to Recommendation 39 of Lord Cullen's Report into the Piper Alpha disaster. This required that such a database be set up by the regulator (HSE) for and behalf of industry, and that industry access be given to the data.

2. Offshore releases of hydrocarbons are currently reported to HSE Offshore Division (OSD) as dangerous occurrences under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR) which was applied offshore on 1 April 1996.

3. The HCR System contains detailed voluntary information on offshore hydrocarbon release incidents supplementary to that provided under RIDDOR (and previous offshore legislation prior to April 1996) and the database contains data dating from 1 October 1992.

4. HSE has produced Offshore Hydrocarbon Release Statistics reports, derived from the HCR Database, since 1994. These are published annually, and the latest version is available on the Internet at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/hid/osd/hsr2002/index.htm

5. HSE is working closely with industry to examine the problem areas and to try to reduce further the number of releases. The HCR statistics are also being used to measure performance against the stated aim of reducing the number of major and significant releases to 50% of the 2000 baseline figure of 139 by 2004.

6. Severity classification of hydrocarbon releases into Major, Significant and Minor categories, introduced in 1997 and subsequently refined by agreement with industry, involves examination of release rate, duration and quantity released to estimate the potential for fire and/or explosion of each reported hydrocarbon release. Severity definitions and criteria are described in detail in Appendix 2 of the above statistics report, and in the online Help file of the HCR System

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