Safety Case

The articles, safety moments and other materials that are part of this Topic discuss the development of Safety Cases — with a particular emphasis on Offshore Oil & Gas operations.

The image at the top of this page is of the Nimrod airplane. It is used to demonstrate that merely having a Safety Case is no guarantee of safety. Like any other safety program, it requires long-term, consistent commitment from everyone who works at a process or energy facility. (The report written following a Nimrod crash is described in Safety Moment #57: Safety Cases and the Nimrod Crash).

Shown below are publications to do with this Topic.

Copyright © Ian Sutton. 2020. All Rights Reserved.

The Case for Safety Cases

The Deepwater Horizon/Macondo catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) in the year 2010 demonstrated the need for new safety management regulations. The draft regulations went through various iterations, and the name of the responsible government agency changed twice. In the end, the SEMS (Safety and Environmental Management System) regulation became a requirement for offshore oil and gas operations in the United States.

The Chemical Safety Board

The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) conducts investigations into serious incidents that occur in the chemical and process industries. The following quotation is taken from the web site of the United States Chemical Safety Board.

The CSB is an independent federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents. Headquartered in Washington, DC, the agency's board members are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.