On 11 May 2010 the National Energy Board of Canada announced that it would conduct a review of Arctic safety and environmental offshore drilling requirements (the Arctic Review). The Arctic Review will examine the best available information concerning the hazards, risks and mitigation measures associated with offshore drilling activities in the Canadian Arctic and measures to both prevent and respond to accidents and malfunctions. Investigations conducted into previous major accidents reveal that systemic or organizational deficiencies lead or contributed to those accidents. Understanding whether there are any trends, such as specific management system failures which put an organization at greater risk for a catastrophic event, would be of interest in the context of the Arctic Review.
Det Norske Veritas (DNV) was contracted by the NEB to conduct a comparative analysis of major accidents in order to identify trends related to root cause(s) and contributing factors. The major accidents selected for the assessment includes: the capsize of the Ocean Ranger offshore drilling unit (1982), the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident (1986), the Piper Alpha offshore platform disaster (1988), the Westray mining accident (1992), the Longford gas plant accident (1998), the Columbia space shuttle accident (2003) and the Texas City refinery explosion and fire (2005).
The root causes and contributing factors were categorized in accordance with the management system elements set out in the NEB Management and Protection Program Evaluation and Audit Protocol.
The assessment of these accidents indicated that, although programs or management systems had been developed, they were not effectively implemented or reviewed on a regular basis to monitor their adequacy and effectiveness. Also, for most of the accidents, an adequate hazard identification and risk assessment process had not been followed. The relevance of these issues becomes important because the basic responsibility for the safe operation of any activity lies with management of the organization which must ensure all the applicable programs and systems are implemented, reviewed and updated on a regular basis to reflect any required improvements.
In addition, in most cases the applicable regulatory oversight was not comprehensive or focused enough to ensure gaps were identified and the required corrective and preventive actions were developed and implemented.