Offshore Blow-out Accidents - An Analysis of Causes of Vulnerability Exposing Technological Systems to Accidents Thomas G Sætren
[email protected] Univesity of Oslo Universite Louis Pasteur Assessing and communicating risks Wordcount: 24983 Preface This thesis is about understanding causes of vulnerabilities leading to specific type of accidents on offshore oil and gas installations. Blow-out accidents have disastrous potential and exemplify accidents in advanced technological systems. The thesis aims to reveal dysfunctional mechanisms occurring within high reliability systems whether in organization or socio –technical interaction. Technological systems form a central place in technological development and as such this thesis is placed in the technology and society group part of the STS- field, though describing technological risks and accidents at group, organizational and industrial sector level. The contents are description on developments in offshore technological design, theories on how organisational vulnerabilities occur, empirical analysis on three major blow-out accidents, empirical analysis on one normal project for reference, sosio-technological historic description on development in Norwegian offshore industry and final analysis Keywords Blow-out, Offshore, Vulnerabilities, Accident causes, Technological development, Social construction of technology, Bravo – accident, West Vanguard, Snorre A, Ormen Lange Acknowledgments I am grateful for the help and advice I received from the researchers Ger Wackers (Univ of Maastricht/Univ of Oslo) and Knut Haukelid (Univ of Oslo) during the later stages of the project. I am also indebt to my two fellow students Marius Houm and for assistance and advice during the process The 14 interviewees I owe big thanks for the time they spent talking to me a novice in the offshore industry.