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Maintenance, safety issues will be prioritized at Prudhoe Bay Operation review team confirms worker concerns about maintenance, safety issues at field; management says it will address critical issues quickly By Kristen Nelson PNA Editor-in-Chief
The Operations Review Team appointed by BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. this summer to review concerns raised by workers about the integrity of Greater Prudhoe Bay facilities and operations “validated concerns raised by workers,” Prudhoe Bay management said in a response to the report.
Management said it will set priorities “to ensure that critical issues are quickly addressed.”
The team made 78 recommendations. Management said 39 are in progress and several had been addressed prior to the start of the review.
The review team concluded that while workers generally feel safe at Prudhoe Bay, they consider “that certain critical safety systems are in need of urgent maintenance and significant upgrades.”
The team recommended immediate actions on a number of items: identify and address all potential non-compliance issues; continue actions to bring pressure safety valve and fire and gas panel inspections up to date; continue upgrading of fire and gas detection systems on a field-wide basis; implement a significant increase in external corrosion monitoring and repair; and initiate a field-wide program to clean and grease isolation valves followed by a survey of the valves to determine the extent of internal leak-through and how that leak-through impacts ability of field operators to safely shut down production.
Backlogs large and growing The review team said that there are large and growing maintenance backlogs in some areas, including unacceptable preventative maintenance backlogs for pressure safety valves and for fire and gas detection system panels.
The team said that resources are being put in place to assist in eliminating those backlogs, but recommended a consistent and better-focused definition of “safety critical” across the field and implementation of a reliability centered maintenance program.
“Actions are in progress to address integrity and safety critical maintenance backlog issues,” management said in its response, including work to bring pressure safety valve inspections up to date by the end of the second quarter. Management also said that a new maintenance strategy is being developed, with phased implementation to start in 2002, which will address maintenance issues “such as work planning, compliance monitoring, availability of parts, staffing levels and meeting performance.”
Fire, gas detection systems old Portions of the original fire and gas detection systems — while still functioning — are old, portions predate current code and replacement parts are difficult to obtain, the team said, and recommended upgrading the fire and gas systems, noting that significant progress has been made toward development of a state-of-the-art fire and gas detection system to replace the originals.
Preventative maintenance is behind on the fire and gas detection systems, including scheduled maintenance required by regulation, the review team said; they noted that management is taking short-term steps to eliminate the backlog.
Management said actions are in progress to address safety critical items and fire and gas systems maintenance will be brought up to date by the end of the second quarter of 2002. Planning has started to update fire and gas detection systems and to manage spare parts availability for the existing systems, with a pilot upgrade scheduled to begin next year.
Production shutdown can be done safely The review team said that production shutdown can be done safely, “but may require closure of manual valves by operators.” Workers are concerned, the team said, that “ability to safety shutdown production has been diminished by staff reductions” and believe “internal leak-through of isolation valves (shutdown valves, divert valves, flare valves and perimeter valves) is a significant problem and under certain circumstances may pose a potential hazard to workers and equipment.” The team said operators “point to continued flaring after an emergency shutdown and difficulty in achieving process isolation as evidence that appreciable internal leak-through is occurring in some automatic isolation valves.”
The review recommends an assessment of internal leak-through in key isolation valves and development of an action plan.
Management said recent shutdowns and tests have demonstrated that facilities can be shut down and isolated, but the tests “do not validate isolation valve integrity.” A field-wide testing procedure will be developed by the end of the first quarter next year, management said in its response, including criteria for valve reliability and leak-through testing, with testing to begin in the second quarter.
Open air skids not popular BP is moving to open-air skids at Prudhoe: they are less expensive to build than enclosed skids and “greatly reduce the risk of explosion from all but large gas leaks,” the team said.
But workers said that operation and maintenance of open-air skids are more difficult during much of the year because of Arctic weather conditions.
“New skid designs appear to accept higher maintenance costs in order to save initial costs,” the review team said.
While some actions are being taken to address employee concerns in retrofitting existing open-air skids and design of new skids, the review team said these actions are not taking place “at the pace expected by the workers.”
Management said wind wall protection will be provided on some new facilities by the end of the second quarter next year, and that a clear process will be developed “to ensure workers have the opportunity to comment and participate in the design of future facilities.”
Staffing concerns While current staffing is adequate to handle operations under normal operating conditions, the review team found that workers feel operations staffing is not sufficient in some areas of the field to allow for normal operations, training requirements, increases in maintenance, vacations and other absences “or to prevent escalation of process upsets.”
Workers also report that emergency response and spill response teams have a difficult time maintaining a full and trained complement, raising concerns about emergency response.
In the near term, additional workers are necessary to reduce maintenance backlogs, achieve regulatory compliance in safety-critical areas and to accomplish essential preventative maintenance on schedule.
Management said that immediate action will be taken on staffing issues where critical for safety and operations, and noted that additional staff has already been added for fire and gas inspections and for pressure safety valve certification.
Future staffing decisions, management said, will be driven by the mid-term operations plan the new maintenance strategy. “A two-way dialogue will take place with employees as these plans develop.”
Editor’s note: Later this month, PNA will carry an interview with a member of the Operations Review Team.
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