INDUSTRIAL VEHICLE GUIDE: HELPING TO ENSURE SAFETY AND EFFICIENCY DURING RIG MOVES
The primary goal of a rig move is to relocate a drilling rig from one spot to the next. These moves are crucial for exploration and production activities to continue at a rapid pace and align with well program objectives and milestones, while ensuring safe activities occur the entire time. While they are consistently done safely, rig moves can introduce potential for a serious injury or fatality (SIF) on a drilling rig.
There is an increased number of simultaneous tasks being completed during rig moves. Processes are increased in complexity due to coordinating tasks on two different locations, frequently occurring many miles apart, with the route serving almost as a third location, bridging the two well sites together. Before any rig move, a thorough route survey must be conducted for potential hazards that can be mitigated or eliminated. Crews are well versed in identifying common transportation-related hazards like low hanging wires, narrow or inadequate bridges and roadways, railroad crossings and even landowner issues.
All equipment used during rig moves is regularly inspected and maintained, verifying the condition of rigging equipment, cranes, and other machinery. Thorough inspection and maintenance documentation occurs, ensuring accountability and tracking any issues that need attention.
Wearing appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) is crucial at all phases of the well cycle, including rig moves. Standard PPE is used like hard hats, safety glasses, impact gloves, and steel toed boots, with additional PPE like high-visibility clothing providing fine-tuned protection from rig-move specific hazards. Proper nutrition and hydration are another essential aspect of a successful and safe rig move.
Ensuring crane safety during rig moves is essential for protecting personnel and maintaining operational integrity. Implementing the following practices helps to mitigate risks and enhance the safety of crane operations.
• Allow only certified crane operators to use a crane, and make sure certifications are ready to be presented upon request.
• Before commencing crane operations, conduct a thorough risk assessment. Clear communication and coordination among all personnel involved are crucial.
• Identify potential hazards and risks and develop strategies to mitigate them effectively.
• Regularly inspect and maintain all crane components, including the boom, cables, and controls.
• Ensure that all components are in good working condition and meet safety standards. Document inspections and maintenance activities to ensure compliance and track any issues.
• Follow safe operating procedures while operating a crane as load capacity, stability, and proper rigging techniques are all properly considered.
• Maintain effective communication between the crane operator and other personnel involved in the operation to ensure a safe working environment.
• All personnel must stay out from under suspended loads. If a load is waist-high and you can touch it, you are under a suspended load.
• Keep all hands and feet clear of pinch points.
• Avoid turning your back to a moving load or block, designating someone to spot the block.
• Keep the crane operator's line of sight clear and keep non-essential personnel clear of the work area.
For the crane rigger and crane operator to communicate effectively during a lift, the industry has adopted a set of universally recognized hand signals.
Safety is a top priority during rig moves, during all activities like crane operation and forklift usage. We can create a safer work environment that protects the well-being of all personnel involved. Let’s work together as we Actively C.A.R.E. to ensure safety remains at the forefront of our operations, reducing exposures and promoting a culture of safety.
Read out the full HSE News here: https://www.helmerichpayne.com/industrial-vehicle-guide-helping-to-ensure-safety-and-efficiency-during-rig-moves or download the article from here: https://www.helmerichpayne.com/media/images/Industrial-Vehicle-Guide_042524.pdf.
Contact us to know more about us: https://www.helmerichpayne.com/contact.
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THE POWER OF PROCEDURES: EVALUATING AND ENHANCING OIL & GAS SAFETY
The Purpose of Procedures
Procedures exist for a reason. They are designed to promote efficiency, safety, and quality. In your everyday life, you may follow a specific routine when you get ready for the day or complete tasks to ensure you’re starting off on the right foot. Procedures provide a set of guidelines that everyone can follow, regardless of their level of expertise or experience. In the oil and gas industry, where the workforce is often fluctuating, this standardization is essential. Organizations can maintain uniformity in their operations, demonstrate a commitment to consistent processes, and most importantly – help keep others safe.
Evaluating Procedural Understanding
So how do we evaluate our workforce’s understanding of the procedures we so desperately rely on? H&P’s LifeBelt Success Checks help us do just this.
H&P LifeBelts were developed to highlight those activities with the highest likelihood to result in a SIF. Establishing and honoring buffer zones and barricades is an example. We know that tubulars being transported with the forklift represent a significant SIF exposure, so we enforce a buffer zone around the forklift equal to 15 feet, or the length of the tubular, whichever is greater. LifeBelt Success Checks enables supervisors with the ability to continually assess their crew’s awareness and understanding of buffer zone and barricade procedures like these.
Watch out the full video here: https://youtu.be/yN8E_BHxJTw?si=IyL-eZOctXHSmdT8.
Pre-populated question sets help supervisors facilitate a discussion with employees to gauge their understanding of the LifeBelts and related operational procedures. These discussions also afford the employee the opportunity to point out situations in which completing the task in accordance with H&P’s LifeBelts may be difficult or non-enabled. This feedback is critical to determining the need for coaching, provision of additional training tools, changes to procedures and even equipment design. Feedback from the individuals that perform the work to the leaders and creators of work plans carries a great deal of importance: procedures and work plans must be continuously evaluated for accuracy and adjusted to reflect the actual process for completing the work safely.
Strengthening Safety
Procedures – essential for maintaining efficiency, consistency, and accountability – are one of our best lines of defense to maintaining a safe work environment. Let’s be sure we follow them as we Actively C.A.R.E. for ourselves and others!
Read out the full HSE News here: https://www.helmerichpayne.com/the-power-of-procedures-evaluating-and-enhancing-oil-and-gas-safety
Or you can also download the pdf of the same from here: https://www.helmerichpayne.com/media/product-highlights/The-Power-of-Procedures-Evaluating-and-Enhancing-Oil-Gas-Safety.pdf
Contact to know more about us: https://www.helmerichpayne.com/contact#enhancingsafety#weactivelycare#hsenews#helmerichandpayne #h&plifebelts #oilandgasindustry
ASKING “WHAT IF?” A SIMPLE CONCEPT WITH A BIG IMPACT
Since Helmerich & Payne’s adoption of Actively C.A.R.E.™, our serious injury or fatality (SIF)-based safety program, dropped objects have stayed at the top of SIF exposures that our workers face daily. With so many different items located throughout the drilling rig with the potential to become a dropped object, we must stay constantly vigilant in our assessments to eliminate these exposures.
While we strive to eliminate potential dropped objects by engineering them out, we sometimes must use other approaches to reduce the chance of a SIF potential event. Some of these tactics include inspections, secondary retention, erecting and honoring buffer zones, and always looking up and asking, “What if?”
What goes up… must come down
Dropped objects don’t just include large objects like tubulars. As rig crews complete routine mast maintenance and tools are not recorded properly, they can get left at heights. Rough drilling or even a gust of wind can cause these items to fall back down to the rig floor or the ground, with the potential to unexpectedly injure someone.
Processes that help us ask, “What if?”
Our focus on the control and removal of exposures has resulted in elimination or mitigation of the potential of many dropped objects on our rigs. Maintaining a proactive approach in support of our employees and rigs allows us to continue to make improvements in this area.
Consider these proactive measures to help create a safer work environment for yourselves and others:
✓ Complete all dropped object inspections in the cadence they are required
✓ Correcting any deficiencies noted in timely manner
✓ Perform a final walk around or visual inspection prior to raising the mast
✓ Utilize the Tools at Heights Checklist
✓ Verify all equipment that was taken overhead for work has been brought back down
✓ Honor all barricades and buffer zones per procedure for working overhead, rough drilling, and
day to day tasks
✓ Ensure secondary retention is in place during all equipment installations, if required, and change out if needed
✓ Think outside the box: stop the job and find ways to eliminate any potential dropped objects from the work location - you are the ones completing tasks daily.
These items are just some of the many ways to help us eliminate the SIF exposures that pertain to dropped objects around the drilling rigs.
Read out the full HSE news here: https://www.helmerichpayne.com/asking-what-if-a-simple-concept-with-a-big-impact or download the PDF of the same from here: https://www.helmerichpayne.com/media/product-highlights/Asking-%E2%80%9CWhat-If%E2%80%9D-A-Simple-Concept-with-a-Big-Impact.pdf.
Reach out to us to know more: https://www.helmerichpayne.com/contact.
#hsenews#helmerichandpayne#weactivelycare#sifexposures#toolschecklist
