{"id":6739,"date":"2016-07-18T16:41:35","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T21:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/?p=6739"},"modified":"2016-08-21T13:54:36","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T18:54:36","slug":"safety-investment-remains-resilient-despite-downturn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/safety-investment-remains-resilient-despite-downturn\/","title":{"rendered":"Safety Investment Remains Resilient Despite Downturn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oil and gas companies are continuing to invest in safety research despite the current oil price downturn, DNV GL representatives told Rigzone during a recent trip to the firm\u2019s Spadeadam testing and research facility in Cumbria, England.<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cBusiness is tough in the oil and gas sector but committed customers are still investing in safety improvement. They\u2019re still conducting research into major hazards,\u201d said Gary Tomlin, DNV GL UK\u2019s vice president of safety and risk.<\/span><\/h3>\n

Naturally, the level of this investment was slightly hampered by the drop in crude prices, but investment has started to increase over the last couple of months.<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cWe saw a hiccup and to be honest, it\u2019s inevitable. When the oil price drops from $110 a barrel to $27, you\u2019re kidding yourself if you\u2019re not going to see a hiccup,\u201d said Hari Vamadevan, DNV GL – Oil & Gas\u2019 regional manager for the UK and West Africa.<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen a pickup I would say over the last couple of months \u2026 oil recovery to $50 has helped a little bit, I think there\u2019s positive cash flows for some companies, but many companies haven\u2019t stopped [investing],\u201d he added.<\/span><\/h3>\n

Investment in this type of research is expected to rise even further over the not too distant future, as the oil price achieves an anticipated rise and oil and gas firms gain more access to expendable income.<\/span><\/h3>\n

From an industry perspective we think \u2026 we\u2019ll see an upturn 2017-2018,\u201d said Tomlin. \u201cI think that we\u2019ve plateaued. We are a cyclical oil and gas industry \u2026 I think we\u2019ve hit the low point, but we do need to be aware that we still need to control costs,\u201d said Vamadevan. \u201cI think companies will become profitable at $50 and $60 per barrel, and as the price rises I think there will be more investment. So I am hopeful that we will see more activity going forward,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/h3>\n

Oil, Gas Safety Testing \u2018Critically Important\u2019<\/span><\/h3>\n

Oil and gas major hazards testing and research was described as critically important by Tomlin, who outlined the significance of Spadeadam for the hydrocarbon sector.<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a unique facility worldwide. There are other facilities like this, but none that do the breadth of the work we do, so it\u2019s something we\u2019re incredibly proud of. The work we do here is of critical importance,\u201d said Tomlin.<\/span><\/h3>\n

DNV GL Spadeadam Testing and Research is designed to carry out full-scale hazardous trials and simulate real-world environments. Situated in 120 acres (50 hectares) of Ministry of Defence land in the north of England, it offers the opportunity to test equipment, components, products, techniques and processes, and to provide data to validate computer models.\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

aff at Spadeadam have recreated a number of major accidents at their facility – ranging from the Piper Alpha platform explosion to the Buncefield oil storage terminal fire – to find out exactly what went wrong and help prevent future incidents in the oil and gas industry.<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re undertaking research here that helps … [oil and gas companies] understand hazards that they\u00a0 manage in their facilities, so that they can take measures to limit the risk to their people and their infrastructure,\u201d said Tomlin. \u201cWe get people to experience large scale fires and explosions so that they can see and feel the power of these events. They can\u2019t get that anywhere else in the world.\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n

Most safety lessons in the oil and gas sector come from real world events, said Vamadevan, who highlighted how experiences of this nature can be more useful than theoretical work.<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cIf you \u2026 felt a jet fire, you experience what happens in an explosion, it means you understand it much better than reading in a textbook, seeing a colour contour on a map or seeing a percentage,\u201d Vamadevan told Rigzone.<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

Copyright: Rig Zone<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oil and gas companies are continuing to invest in safety research despite the current oil price downturn, DNV GL representatives told Rigzone during a recent trip to the firm\u2019s Spadeadam testing and research facility in Cumbria, England. \u201cBusiness is tough in the oil and gas sector but committed customers are still investing in safety improvement. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1017],"tags":[426,948,947,944,679,208,942,455,946,945,858,943],"class_list":["post-6739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-barrel","tag-barrels","tag-cride","tag-dnv","tag-gas","tag-oil","tag-oil-investment","tag-petroleum","tag-risk","tag-saefty-and-risk","tag-uk","tag-west-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrgibroker.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}