A new milestone has been reached in the form of a guidance document aimed at supporting a global industry that performs millions of offshore personnel transfers every year. These guidelines are outlined in a document entitled "Offshore Personnel Transfer by Crane-Best Practice Guidelines for Routine & Emergency Operations," which was recently released by the Marine Transfer Forum, a group that focuses on personnel transfers to and from offshore installations by marine methods.
The need for such guidelines is explained on the forum's web site at www.marinetransferforum.org: "Unlike the highly regulated aviation industry, marine practices vary greatly from region to region." Through collaboration, the forum says it commits to "raising standards, increasing awareness, gathering better data, developing better reporting, sharing good practice, and improving equipment and services."
The forum's aim
The forum, which is run by a steering group of organizations including EnerMech, DNV GL, Reflex Marine, and Seacor Marine, aims to "build a substantial personnel transfer data set." Forum members are requested to contribute activity levels and incident data to an independent annual survey. Benefitting from this range of expertise, the guidelines "reflect the key roles in ensuring safe and efficient marine transfer operations," the group said.
Key contributions to the guidelines also came through a period of detailed consultation with various industry groups including the International Marine Contractors Association, the Institute of Occupational Safety & Health (IOSH), and Damen Shipyards. Involving these groups ensured that the guidelines reflected best practices and were relevant not only to the conventional offshore oil and gas industry, but also to the growing marine renewable energy industry.
Simon Hatson, chair of IOSH's offshore group, explained, "The offshore industry is one in which workers face many inherent risks, but all workers, irrespective of their industry, should be covered by a culture of care."
Robin Proctor, Reflex Marine's primary contact for the forum, noted, "Market conditions, new technologies, evolving logistics demands in offshore wind, and increasing industry trends toward marine vs. helicopter-based logistics all bring the case for marine transportation methods into sharper focus."
Crane transfers
According to the forum's findings, every year about 9 million passenger transfers to offshore installations are made via helicopter, and an estimated 7 million transfers/year are made by sea. Marine-based crew supply involves a range of methods that includes crane transfer, walk to work, step-over (to a ladder or boat landing), and swing rope. Of these, crane transfer is the most common method, accounting for about 5 million transfers/year.
Using data based on the review of global crane transfer incidents involving all carrier types from mainly 2000 onwards, the forum determined that a majority of crane-transfer incidents-68%-are most likely to occur on or near the vessel not hosting the crane. About 13% occur at the installation itself, 7% at the mid-transfer point, and 12% are unknown.
It was discovered that the highest number of incidents-46%-occur during pick-up of the carrier, as opposed to landing. This is typically due to an off-centered lift, or the misalignment between the crane hook and the carrier during pick-up, causing the carrier to swing uncontrollably. About 21% of the incidents occurred at the mid-transfer point, 30% at the landing point, and 3% are unknown.
The types of incidents vary as well. About 54% of incidents involved falls from the carrier, 40% are lateral collisions, 16% are vertical impacts, 9% are trips and entanglements, and 6% are immersions. It is noted that since incidents can fall into more than one of these categories, the cumulative total for the categories used is greater than 100%.
In recent years, crane transfers have evolved through changes in the design of the carrier, the crane, and the vessel. Safe crane transfers rely on collaboration across several disciplines, the forum found, including lifting, marine logistics, health and safety, and asset management.
To achieve best-practice transfer procedures, the forum formulated guidelines for conducting passenger briefings, entries and exits, liftings, emergency response protocols, and vessel-mounted crane standards. This was done all in the name of "working together to transfer crews safely."
Steven Poruban | Managing Editor-News
Steven Poruban was hired as staff writer for Oil & Gas Journal in October 1998. Two years later, he was promoted to senior staff writer. In October 2004, he was then promoted to senior editor. He now serves as managing editor-news.
Before working for OGJ, Steven was a reporter for Gas Daily and editor of Gas Transportation Report. He attended Boston University then transferred to and graduated from Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pa., with a BA in English in 1993.
