EXTERNAL PUBLICATIONS
HSE RR1114
Offshore accident and failure frequency data sources - review and recommendations
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SUMMARY
Appropriate failure frequencies are a crucial requirement to perform quantitative risk assessment (QRA) to demonstrate compliance with established risk criterion and the associated regulatory compliance. It also enables estimation of potential loss of life, one of the measures used by HSE to prioritise offshore inspections. This work critically reviews failure frequency data sources relevant to the offshore oil and gas industry to develop a methodology to produce suitable failure frequencies for use in offshore QRA.
This review of failure frequencies, their sources and their impact on offshore QRAs concludes that duty holders should use the most appropriate data sources, and where possible these should be specific for the offshore environment on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf.
The recommended data sources from the review are:
- The Hydrocarbon Release Database (HCRD);
- HSE offshore statistics (accidents and injuries);
- Pipeline and Riser Loss of Containment (PARLOC);
- SINTEF Blowout Database; and
- International Association of Oil and Gas Producers – Risk Assessment Data Directory.
Other recommendations include potential improvements to the HCRD and wider availability of data sources. Data sources should produce a report describing the data (including the number of failures and the underlying population) and have a method of receiving feedback from users.
This Research Report and the work it describes were funded by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Its contents, including any opinions and/or conclusions expressed, are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect HSE policy.
