Health and safety is a gas at Acergy

About Acergy

The Acergy consistently strives to be the acknowledged leader in seabed-to-surface engineering and construction. This objective applies to all areas of its business and nowhere more than in HSE, where its stated aim is to attain zero injuries, zero damage to assets and the environment and zero near misses.

One of the projects in which Acergy is involved is the construction of Langeled Pipeline, the longest subsea pipeline in the world. When completed it will stretch 1200km from Nyhamna in Norway to Easington on the North East coast of England and will supply the UK with around 20% of its gas supply for the next 40 years.

The contract for this work was awarded to Acergy in 2003 and required the refitting and upgrade of the Acergy Piper pipelaying barge to enable it to cope with the challenging environmental conditions of the UK and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea.

The team aboard the Acergy Piper has at times numbered over 600 with representatives of almost 40 nationalities. In a static environment, this would clearly bring issues and challenges in terms of effective health and safety management and communication. Add to this the fact that the barge was working in some of the most difficult environmental conditions in the world and that the project was very high profile clearly exacerbated the situation. However, all Acergy's work on this project has been completed "DAFWC free" - that's more than three million man-hours without any incidents resulting in injuries causing a day or more off work.

Clearly this was not accomplished without considerable proactive management of HSE and a sense of ownership by all involved who were working in difficult circumstances over many months in  temperatures as low as -1ºC.

Choosing Sypol

Acergy's HSEQ manager Warren Stocks has been leading this process and is behind the introduction of a range of initiatives including environmental monitoring and training and motivation programmes. To help him achieve this Warren has chosen to work with specialist suppliers on a long-term basis. One of these is Sypol. 

Sypol first started working with Acergy when the company decided it wanted to improve its management of COSHH by introducing Sypol's management system CMS. Sypol quickly proved its  knowledge of health and safety issues in the oil and gas industry with its implementation of CMS for Acergy. So when Warren Stocks took the decision to undertake a range of environmental surveys with a view to assessing which areas should be focussed on, it seemed a natural choice to ask Sypol to undertake the work. Acergy commissioned Sypol to look at a range of environmental aspects of its business including air quality, lighting and noise. And while Acergy was already running a pretty tight ship, excuse the pun, on health and safety, Sypol has made many recommendations which have made the Acergy Piper a healthier and safer place to be.

For example, when Sypol's consultants looked at fumes in the Piper's welding areas it recommended that further ventilation extraction systems should be introduced. However, it was further recommended that this needed to be done in consultation with welding specialists to ensure that the inert gas required for weld integrity was not removed.  Another recommendation was that people working in the barge's main firing line, which incorporates five welding stations, an UT NDT station and two pipe-coating stations, should wear fresh air fed visors, with differing levels of protection given to workers in different areas.

Sypol's recommendations have also influenced Acergy's procurement strategy. For example when it recently invested in a new prime engine for the Piper barge, an expensive piece of kit costing over $12 million, the consultancy's advice on acceptable noise levels was considered as part of Acergy's purchasing policy so that potential noise issues were reduced, as far as was practical, at source rather than considering remedial PPE.

Further environmental surveys carried out on behalf of Acergy concern lighting. The first phase of these was carried out whilst the barge was in dry dock making the process quicker and more straightforward. In this area, Sypol again found that Acergy was largely meeting all necessary requirements. However, Sypol advised some simple additional maintenance activities to maximise light in particular areas of the barge. These included putting reflective foil behind light bulbs,regular cleaning light covers and painting surrounding areas white. Hardly rocket science, but simple, cost-effective and measures that make a real difference.
An integral part of the Acergy team

Warren Stocks comments: 
"Our staff, including the operational and marine crews as well and the health, safety and environmental personnel, see Sypol as an integral part of the team because their advice is always practical and down-to-earth rather than just talking about regulations and legislation."

From strength to strength

A challenge familiar to anyone involved with the management of health and safety is keeping people motivated so that relevant issues and appropriate behaviours stay top of mind. This is obviously especially when they are working in a pressurised environment that involves being away from home for protracted periods.  Warren and his team appear to have cracked this particular hard nut with a range of initiatives and incentive schemes.

Acergy, together with solution partner Statoil, agreed to contribute, on a 50/50 basis, $250 to a central charity pot for each "Happy" day, as agreed by Langeled personnel. Acergy staff were encouraged to nominate charities of their choice to help ensure smaller, local charities benefited from the funds raised. By keeping donations personal in this way, the awards have made a real difference to the recipients.

During 2005, 240 out of 248 days were agreed as "Happy Days". These are days that Warren and the project management team define as safe in terms of pro-active measures that have been taken to maintain safety.  So far more than $148,000 has been raised for a wide range of nominated charities and Acergy has received a number of poignant thank you letters.

During 2006, the Incentive Scheme was reinvigorated with the addition of a new Langeled prize of an IPOD engraved with details of the award given to the person making the Safety Observation (SO) of the month. This award is open to all onboard the Acergy Piper and submissions are assessed by a panel of Acergy and Statoil representatives before the winning entry is announced.

Nominations, so far, have been from crew, visitors and sub-contractors who have raised an SO onboard, which, in the opinion of the Offshore Management Team and the onshore Project team improves HSE.

Warren Stocks concludes:

"With 37 nationalities among the 600 crew, the choice of an MP3 player has proved highly popular and SO reporting has greatly improved as a result of the initiative, significantly contributing towards onboard HSE."

It appears that combining practical advice with initiatives that encourage engagement with health safety and environmental management by all personnel on the barge has made a real difference and is ensuring that Acergy's corporate commitment is a whole lot more than just a set of worthy words.