In search of causes behind offshore incidents: Fire in offshore oil and gas facilities

Abstract In order to eliminate fire incidents from occurring onboard offshore oil and gas facilities, it is crucial to have a better understanding of the causes behind them. Such understanding can be achieved through identification of the underlying causes that led to the previous incidents. Current paper focuses on analyzing investigation reports of 137 fire incidents reported to Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) by oil and gas facilities located in the outer continental shelf of the US. The analysis digs as far as possible into the investigation reports to provide a statistical representation of the technical, operational, human and organizational factors that contributed to these incidents and to identify the lagging causes and the leading measures that needs to be tackled in order to prevent future disasters. Although the investigation reports indicated equipment failure and human error as the most common direct causes, further analysis showed that job safety analysis, procedure and maintenance related issues were the top contributors to such incidents.