Originally published 21 June 2016. This article has been revisited and updated for republication.
An offshore safety award from a major operator says more about an engineering contractor than any brochure can. In 2016, Ichthys operator INPEX presented a safety award to Scott Warren, project manager at ICON Engineering, for his work aboard the ENSCO 5006 drilling rig during the well completions stage of the Ichthys LNG project.
What the offshore safety award recognised
INPEX said Mr Warren received the award for good planning and preparation prior to picking up ICON’s ARTP (Advanced Riser Tension Protector). INPEX also noted that he led a strong Job Safety Analysis (JSA) with the crew, asking plenty of open questions to encourage input and participation in hazard identification.
A JSA is a structured pre-task review in which the work crew breaks a job down into its steps, identifies the hazards at each step and agrees the controls before work begins. Its value depends heavily on genuine crew participation — which is exactly what INPEX singled out in Mr Warren’s approach.
Safe introduction of brand-new equipment
The recognition carried extra weight because of what the operation involved: the crew was operating a completely new piece of equipment. The ARTP range of coiled tubing lift frames had been launched by ICON in 2014, and introducing unfamiliar equipment into a live offshore operation is precisely when disciplined planning and hazard identification matter most.
ICON managing director David Field said he was very glad to see the ICON safety culture being recognised.
“Congratulations to Scott for keeping the issue of safety at the forefront of workers’ minds in this operation, which involved the crew having to operate a completely new piece of equipment,” he said at the time.
The rig and the project
The ENSCO 5006 is a semisubmersible drilling rig that served as the development drilling rig for the INPEX-operated Ichthys project, located approximately 220 kilometres off the Western Australian coast. The well completions stage saw ICON’s ARTP equipment deployed in the field following its 2014 launch.
An offshore safety award of this kind reflects the standard ICON works to across its drilling, completions and well test support scopes, where ICON personnel work alongside rig crews to plan, install and operate ICON equipment offshore. Read more about ICON’s approach to safety on the HSEQ page.
