The nation turns to the National Academies-National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council-for independent, objective advice on issues that affect people's lives worldwide. Book jacket.

Since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill, efforts to improve safety in the offshore oil industry have resulted in the adoption of new technological controls, increased promotion of safety culture, and the adoption of new data collection systems to improve both safety and performance. As an essential element of a positive safety culture, operators and regulators are increasingly integrating strategies that empower workers to participate in process safety decisions that reduce hazards and improve safety. While the human factors of personal safety have been widely studied and widely adopted in many high-risk industries, process safety â€" the application of engineering, design, and operative practices to address major hazard concerns â€" is less well understood from a human factors perspective, particularly in the offshore oil industry. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine organized a workshop in January 2018 to explore best practices and lessons learned from other high-risk, high-reliability industries for the benefit of the research community and of citizens, industry practitioners, decision makers, and officials addressing safety in the offshore oil industry. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

The blowout of the Macondo well on April 20, 2010, led to enormous consequences for the individuals involved in the drilling operations, and for their families. Eleven workers on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig lost their lives and 16 others were seriously injured. There were also enormous consequences for the companies involved in the drilling operations, to the Gulf of Mexico environment, and to the economy of the region and beyond. The flow continued for nearly 3 months before the well could be completely killed, during which time, nearly 5 million barrels of oil spilled into the gulf. Macondo Well-Deepwater Horizon Blowout examines the causes of the blowout and provides a series of recommendations, for both the oil and gas industry and government regulators, intended to reduce the likelihood and impact of any future losses of well control during offshore drilling. According to this report, companies involved in offshore drilling should take a "system safety" approach to anticipating and managing possible dangers at every level of operation-from ensuring the integrity of wells to designing blowout preventers that function under all foreseeable conditions-in order to reduce the risk of another accident as catastrophic as the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. In addition, an enhanced regulatory approach should combine strong industry safety goals with mandatory oversight at critical points during drilling operations. Macondo Well-Deepwater Horizon Blowout discusses ultimate responsibility and accountability for well integrity and safety of offshore equipment, formal system safety education and training of personnel engaged in offshore drilling, and guidelines that should be established so that well designs incorporate protection against the various credible risks associated with the drilling and abandonment process. This book will be of interest to professionals in the oil and gas industry, government decision makers, environmental advocacy groups, and others who seek an understanding of the processes involved in order to ensure safety in undertakings of this nature.

A common source of failure in a human‐dependent barrier or safety critical task is a designed‐in mismatch error. The mismatch is a cognitive demand that exceeds the human capability to reliably and promptly respond to that demand given the plausible situations at that moment. Demand situations often include incomplete information, increased time pressures, and challenging environments. This book presents innovative solutions to reveal, prevent, and mitigate these and many other cognitive‐type errors in barriers and safety critical tasks. The comprehensive model and methodologies also provide insight into where and to what extent these barriers and task types may be significantly underspecified and the potential consequences. This title presents a new and comprehensive prototype design and lifecycle model specific to human‐dependent barriers and safety critical tasks. Designed to supplement current practice, the model is fully underpinned by cognitive ergonomics and cognitive science. The book also presents a compelling case for why a new global consensus standard specific to human‐dependent barriers is needed. Taking a novel approach, it presents its suggested basis, framing, and content. Both solutions seek to redress deficiencies in global regulations, standards, and practice. The model is guided by industry recommendations and best practice guidance and solutions from globally recognized experts. Its processes are fully explained and supported by examples, analysis, and well‐researched background materials. Real‐life case studies from offshore oil and gas, chemical manufacturing, transmission pipelines, and product storage provide further insight into how overt and latent design errors contributed to barrier degradation and failure and the consequence of those errors. An essential and fascinating read for professionals, Human Barrier Design and Lifecycle: A Cognitive Ergonomics Approach and Path Forward will appeal to those in the fields of human factors, process and technical safety, functional safety, display and safety system design, risk management, facility engineering, and facility operations and maintenance. Chapters 1 and 8 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BYNC-ND) 4.0 International license.

"TRB Special Report 321: Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry offers recommendations to industry and regulators to strengthen and sustain the safety culture of the offshore oil and gas industry. The committee that prepared the report addresses conceptual challenges in defining safety culture and discusses the empirical support for the definition of safety culture offered by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the nine characteristics or elements of a robust safety culture, methods for assessing company safety culture, and barriers to improving safety culture in the offshore industry. The committee's report also identifies topics on which further research is needed with respect to assessing, improving, and sustaining safety culture"--Provided by publisher.

"TRB Special Report 310: Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms examines the hazards and risks to workers on offshore wind farms on the outer continental shelf as compared with the hazards and risks to workers on offshore oil and gas operations. The report explores gaps and overlaps in jurisdictional authority for worker health and safety on offshore wind farms and evaluates the adequacy of--and recommends enhancements to--the existing safety management system (SMS) requirement published in 30 CFR 585.810. The study committee recommends that the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) adopt a full SMS rule for workers on offshore wind farms at a level of detail that includes the baseline elements identified in this report. An enhanced SMS rule should require the use of human factors engineering elements in the design process and should encompass all activities that the lessee and its contractors undertake. In collaboration with other regulatory agencies and industry stakeholders, BOEM should clearly define roles and responsibilities and indicate which standards could apply for all phases of wind farm development, regardless of jurisdiction. Also, with the help of stakeholders, BOEM should support the development of guidelines and recommended practices that could be used as guidance documents or adopted by referen"-