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Australian Government
Australian Government Agencies
Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism
Australian Transport Safety Bureau
Australian Safety and Compensation Council
Inter-Governmental Initiatives
The National OHS Strategy 2002-2012, agreed to by all Australian governments, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), provides a basis for developing sustainable, safe and healthy work environments and for reducing the number of people hurt or killed at work.
International Regulators Forum (IRF)
The International Regulators Forum (IRF) is an informal group of oil and gas regulators from Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
2007 International regulators' offshore safety conference
The IRF will host the 2nd International Regulators Offshore Safety Conference from 5-7 December 2007 in Miami, Florida. Regulatory officials from all nations with ongoing or proposed offshore oil and gas activity are invited to attend. The purpose of the conference is to share experiences and to compare differences in regulatory approach and safety performance.
International Industry Matters and Incidents
The Piper Alpha disaster of 6 July 1988 was an explosion and fire on the North Sea oil platform that claimed 167 lives. This tragedy would not have happened if proper, safe permit to work systems had been in operation. The public Cullen inquiry found there were "significant flaws in the quality of management of safety... Senior management were too easily satisfied that the permit to work system was being operated correctly, relying on the absence of any feedback of problems as indicating that all was well... They adopted a superficial attitude to the assessment of the risk of major hazard."* The Cullen Piper Alpha Inquiry is a commercially available publication in two volumes (ISBN: 010113102-X), published by TSO (The Stationary Office).
*Reference: Cullen HL (1990). The public inquiry into the Piper Alpha disaster, Cmnd 1310, HMSO.
On 23 March 2005 a process accident at the BP Texas City refinery resulted in 15 deaths and more than 170 injuries. The accident was investigated by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSHIB) and the Board's report incorporating a root cause analysis, has been published (Warning: large document 6 MB). The Board's investigation page contains many informative articles, particularly the news release on organisational and safety deficiencies.
Following the recommendation of the CSB, BP formed an independent panel to conduct a thorough review of the company's corporate safety culture, safety management systems, and corporate safety oversight at its U.S. refineries. The reported findings and recommendations of the Panel were intended for a broader audience than just BP and can be read in the Report of the BP U.S. Refineries Independent Safety Review Panel, issued in January 2007.
Offshore Petroleum OHS Research
The International Committee on Regulatory Research and Development (ICRARD) is a collaborative effort between organisations involved in offshore petroleum health and safety research. A searchable collection of OHS research is provided at the ICRARD website: http://www.icrard.org/
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