Development of Early Warning Indicators Based on Incident Investigation

This paper explores the possibility of developing early warning indicators based on incident investigation. The use of early warning indicators may contribute to ensure that oil companies produce oil and gas without harmful spills. The incident investigated was a hydraulic oil leak from the Eirik Raude drilling rig during exploration drilling in the Barents Sea in April 2005. The incident is analyzed using influence diagrams, from which seven general barriers against hydraulic leaks have been identified. For each barrier both checkpoints and indicators have been developed, which provide information about the status of the barriers and early warning of potential spills. The work described in this paper has shown that it is possible to develop early warning indicators based on incident investigation. Several of the proposed checkpoints/indicators may have prevented the oil leak at Eirik Raude, if they had been in use prior to the incident.