A Technical Basis for Guidance of Lightning Protection for Offshore Oil Installations

Lightning strikes to flammable materials in Offshore Oil Installations (OOI) can cause devastating accidents. Explosions from flammable materials are a personnel safety danger. Loss of function and loss of production due to upsets of analog and digital low voltage systems is another. This paper describes the underlying basis for guidance of protection of Offshore Oil Installations (OOI) from direct lightning strikes and from secondary electromagnetic effects. A technical basis for guidance to address lightning protection designs has evolved from studies by the Electrical Research Institute (IIE). Index Terms Lightning, Lightning Protection, Offshore Oil Installations, Electromagnetic Fields.