The United Kingdom safety regulator has reprimanded one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, Apache, over its handling of incidents during which workers were potentially exposed to asbestos on its Forties Charlie drilling platform in the North Sea.
The Health and Safety Executive issued the company with two improvement notices after they were made aware of a six-week delay in the company’s incident reporting and a lack of crucial safety documentation.
The notices relate to an incident in April of this year when asbestos fibres may have been disturbed during maintenance work. The company confirmed that there may have been a risk to workers at a later date but did not notify the HSE until 45 days after the incident.
The operator “failed to notify the relevant enforcing authority of this reportable incident by the quickest practicable means without delay, and failed to send a report of that incident in an approved manner to the relevant enforcing authority within 10 days of the incident,” the HSE said.
It is has not yet been made clear if workers had been at risk of exposure, with the company noting that “We are actively conducting an investigation into the potential exposure. The safety of our people is our top priority, and we are working closely with the HSE throughout the investigation.”
The incident of potential exposure highlights the risks of historical asbestos usage on offshore drilling operations in the Forties field of the North Sea, and in oil drilling operations generally. Asbestos was commonly used in the 1970s and 1980s during the oil boom, for heat-protective wearable PPE for workers and in insulation.
Both the UK and Norway have issued safety warnings over potential asbestos exposure risk on the aging drilling rigs, with Dianne Foster of Asbestos Action saying that the risk was “disappointing, but no surprise.”
“It is difficult to understand the extent to which offshore workers are at risk of asbestos exposure, as so little information regarding its presence there is available when compared to many workplaces on the mainland,” she added.
“That’s why findings like this latest HSE investigation are so important because it gives rare glimpses about what is happening. The important thing now is to see what actions the platform owners and operators do following any reviews.”
“It is a sad reality across many aspects of life that improvements are made following mistakes – but asbestos is not something people should still be making mistakes over, as its harm has now been known for decades.”