Skills and safety demands of the new offshore fleet

Offshore marine contractors have more than $17 billion-worth of new vessels in yards or at the planning and engineering phase. In a relatively short time we will be seeing the arrival of some 50 new marine construction vessels and 600 offshore support vessels around the world (to say nothing of 40 floating drilling rigs, 100 new work class ROVs; and ten new portable or modular saturation diving systems).

The top-of-the-range installation vessels will be fitted with cranes of 3000t and some with more than 5000t capacity, whilst the top-of-the-range pipelay vessels will have up to 60” diameter pipe handling capacity. With the exception of vessels such as Allseas’ Solitaire and Lorelay, nothing like these top-end vessels has been built for 20 or 30 years. A new breed of ‘single lift’ vessel concepts has also hit the market with capacities from 20,000 – 48,000t. Some of these vessels, much talked about in the last decade, are now actually being built. At the same time, more heavy lift transport ships are being added to the fleet, and these, plus some of the offshore support vessels may be used for offshore construction projects

So, our offshore fleet is certainly about to become physically larger (in terms both of the number of vessels and their actual size), and more sophisticated with the majority featuring dynamic positioning (DP) and state-of-the-art control systems. Many will have the scope to fit and operate additional capacity such as cranes, ROVs, diving systems and reels as required. We’re certainly moving into a new era; but what concerns me is whether skills and safety levels will match the sophistication of this ‘new-look’ fleet.

We’ve already seen a slippage in delivery of some of the new vessels, said to be because of “scarcity of labour in Europe”. This scarcity of labour goes far beyond Europe and it is important that we take a global view, because regardless of where the vessels are being built, they will be used all around the world in challenging new frontier areas.

Through this year, one of the items topping the IMCA agenda on behalf of our 420 plus member companies in 48 countries is the worrying business of skills shortages, indeed I wrote about it in a recent issue of O&G. To operate these new vessels, we need some 2000 additional watch-keepers across the bridge, deck and engine room; 800 personnel in saturation diving and related positions; 1000 additional survey and inspection personnel; 1200 ROV personnel and many diving, support, project and engineering personnel; it is a “huge ask”.

Everyone in the offshore industry is striving towards the ‘holy grail’ of zero injuries. Therefore, all these new people, who will have to be attracted to the industry, must be capable of absorbing the available knowledge and ascribe to the industry safety objectives; training must continue across the board to keep these people safe; and with the large numbers involved, training establishments and trainers will be in high demand – yes, yet more people needed!

New and ever-more sophisticated technology

Having set you thinking about the issues of skills availability; and combining skills and safety, let us take a look at the new technology that everyone will be working with – and will need to trust.

Within the offshore contracting industry we are used to multi-redundant, fail safe systems; the lack of new vessels over the past decade or so has meant that we have been working with vessels with long histories, systems have been added and evolved, ironing out teething problems and improving performance. Now, fresh from the yards we are going to see very sophisticated vessels (and extremely sophisticated equipment fitted on them) often going straight out to the oil and gas provinces where they are most needed. Almost without exception, this will see them operating in ever deeper and more hostile waters far from shore – yes, it really is ‘new frontier’ country. What should we expect?

Debating the issues

There is, of course, no simple answer to the three linked issues of skills availability; skills and safety; and the impact of new technology. We need to debate the issues and get feedback and views from across the industry and ensure we work together to identify challenges, and set the wheels in motion to share solutions – these are all classic roles for IMCA. Naturally, these issues came under the conference spotlight as speakers and delegates debated the issue at the annual IMCA Seminar (the 15th in the series) that took place in Paris in early November, and had as the very apt theme “New Frontiers in Marine Contracting”. And we will, of course, use our real-time safety flash system to share specific operational knowledge as it becomes available.

Learning from collective wisdom

The new fleet and its new personnel will want to learn from the collective wisdom available from the past. This is contained in new design codes that have improved since much of the current fleet was built. But a considerable contribution comes from the equipment specifications, procedures and personnel competence described within IMCA’s good practice guidelines. These also address trials and commissioning, ‘failure modes and effects’ analyses, audit and maintenance programmes developed on past successes and occasionally from past incidents, and the development and recognition of competence in the workforce.

So, we can certainly help to build strong foundations for the new fleet and new people who will be joining the industry. IMCA has published well over 200 guidelines. The most relevant to the new fleet may be DP for supply vessels (and many other DP documents including incident analyses); the Common Marine Inspection Document – more of this later; training and competence framework; crane specifications and lifting operations; Maintenance of wire ropes; communications (bridge and dive control); Incident investigation; vessel and personnel security (including ISPS); as well as the suite of diving documents which support the International code of practice for offshore diving. There are specific guidelines relating to various aspects of safety, and also our much used safety promotional material aimed at individuals within the industry, but safety and efficiency are the goals of the content of almost all our guidelines.

CMID – a living example

IMCA’s Common Marine Inspection Document (CMID) was developed originally to reduce the number of audits carried out on individual vessels, together with the adoption of a common auditing standard for the offshore marine industry. It is gratifying that the CMID is seeing ever-greater adoption around the world and members are actively promoting its use to clients, sub-contractors and other vessel operators. Indeed, a significant part of the international offshore industry has accepted the CMID as the standard for vessel inspections and therefore, when requesting copies of recent inspections they will expect them to be in the format laid out in the CMID – a boon when dealing with the ‘new look’ fleet.

The CMID is treated as a living document. Some parts can be completed by the crew prior to an independent auditor’s arrival and, thereafter, the vessel’s crew can keep it updated wherever possible, so that the minimum amount of work is required at each audit, and auditors can spend their time on board as effectively as possible. Again, it is a topic that we view as so important that it was the subject of one of the workshops at our annual seminar when we explored just how the CMID is used in practice and how the use of the document can be enhanced. It was also a key topic of discussion with senior oil company personnel and keynote speakers who met with our Council the evening before the seminar started, for we are eager to ensure that the CMID meets (and indeed exceeds) all needs and that there is no need for duplication of effort in a system has great benefits in terms of time and cost to clients and contractors alike.

Opportunity for far reaching debate

In our desire to facilitate safe and efficient marine operations, we look forward to a challenging and far-reaching debate and resolutions to ensure the enlarged offshore fleet can operate optimally – and safely.

About the author

Hugh Williams is Chief Executive of IMCA which represents offshore marine and underwater engineering companies worldwide. The association has over 420 company members in 48 countries around the globe. Williams is a chartered civil engineer with 33 years experience under his belt. During this time, he has focussed on marine operations, particularly heavy lifting and marine construction in the offshore oil and gas industry.