Ireland is setting a Petroleum Safety Framework in place that will be recognisable to companies in the UK, but will have a tougher edge, according to John Morgan of GL Noble Denton, which has the contract with the Irish Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) support detailed development of the new regime.
Legislation passed in 2010 gives the CER the responsibility for developing a Petroleum Safety Framework. This stems from the lack of a system by which the controversial Corrib gas project could be effectively assessed.
As the CER’s independent technical advisor, GL Noble Denton will draft a series of documents for the Petroleum Safety Framework, defining what oil and gas operators must do to comply with Irish Petroleum (Exploration and Extraction) Safety Act 2010 and how the CER will regulate them.
The seven-figure contract extends GL Noble Denton’s work with the CER.
“We started work with the CER just over two years ago,” said Morgan, who is head of consulting and compliance.
“That work was initiated just before their Petroleum Exploration and Extraction Safety Act (PEES Act). This mandated the CER to set up a regulatory framework for upstream petroleum . . . off- and onshore, including safety.
“The first piece of work we undertook for them was an overview of what other countries did. In terms of upstream regulation we looked at the UK, Norway, Denmark, Canada and Australia.
“The next piece of work we started in 2011, finishing just a couple of months or so ago. This was to develop the high level petroleum safety framework.”
According to Morgan, the way Irish legislation works is that there is the PEES Act, which sets out a framework. He considers it more analogous to the Health and Safety at Work Act than the UK Offshore Safety Case Regulations. Although it does call for safety cases and goal setting regime, the actual act says little more than that.
“We then spent about 10 or so months on developing the high-level petroleum safety framework. This is effectively a regulatory document that describes the basic structure that they’re actually putting in place, such as safety cases, but without detail.
“There’s probably greater sensitivity in Ireland to the oil and gas industry, which hasn’t had a great press of late because of the controversial Corrib gas project. This is what catalysed the PEES Act in the first place.
“We’re now at the stage where we’re developing eight different documents that will sit below the act. These are guidance documents and are, in essence, part of the overall regulatory framework. They’re not the same as guidance documents in the UK and must be followed.”
The two being worked on at the moment are safety case guidelines and ALARP (as low as reasonably practicable) guidelines.
GL Noble Denton will take until the end of next year to complete phase three of its Irish safety work. It is being conducted out of Aberdeen and Loughborough.