National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority
The National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority (NOPSA) was established in January 2005 to improve safety across the offshore petroleum industry and deliver world-best practice safety regulation in Australia. NOPSA works with the industry, workforce and other authorities to ensure all health and safety risks from offshore petroleum operations are properly managed; administer offshore petroleum safety regulation; and establish and maintain a legislative framework which encourages continuous improvement in the management of health and safety offshore. The Safety Authority is accountable to the Australian Government, State and Northern Territory Ministers.
Safety Case Regime
Safety in the offshore petroleum industry in Australia is regulated under a safety case regime underpinned by the objective (or goal setting) based Petroleum Submerged Lands (Management of Safety on Offshore Facilities) Regulations 1996. These regulations will be replaced by equivalent regulations under the OPGGSA during the next twelve months. The objective based regime is based on the principles that the legislation sets the broad safety goals to be attained; the operator of the facility develops the most appropriate methods of achieving those goals; and the ongoing management of safety is the responsibility of the operator, not the regulator.
Current best practice in offshore safety regulation involves the operator of an offshore facility preparing a safety case with their workforce to manage occupational health and safety at a facility. The safety case describes the facility, identifies the risks of the activities and sets out the risk management strategy/systems to maintain health and safety and their performance standards. Similarly, a Pipeline Safety Management Plan (PSMP) is prepared for work done on a pipeline, and a Diving Safety Management System (DSMS) is prepared for diving operations.
The safety case is submitted to the regulator for assessment. Once a safety case has been accepted by the regulator, it forms the "rules" with which the operator must comply in operation of the facility and against which those operations are audited by the regulator. The safety case regime is well established in Australian offshore oil and gas regulation and was introduced following an analysis of the lessons learnt from the UK North Sea Piper Alpha disaster.
For further information on offshore safety matters contact:
Mr John Clegg
Chief Executive Officer
National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority
GPO Box 2568
PERTH WA 6001
Telephone: +61 8 6461 7001
Facsimile: +61 8 6461 7037
Website: www.nopsa.gov.au
General Manager
Offshore Resources Branch
Resources Division
Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism
GPO Box 1564
CANBERRA ACT 2601
Telephone: +61 2 6213 7928
Facsimile: +61 2 6213 7970
Web Page: www.ret.gov.au/resources/upstream_petroleum/Pages/UpstreamPetroleum.aspx