Risks in Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria

risks in 3.4 Risk elements or type of risk in oil and gas industry in Nigeria

When accident consequences are considered, these may be related to personnel, to the environment, and to assets and production capacity (J. E. Viennem, 2007). The consequence of failure can therefore be categorized into the following dimensions:

1) Personnel risk which includes: fatality and impairment risk

2) Environment risk

3) Asset risk which include: material damage and production delay risk

4) Others are: occupational risk, security risks, safety risks, transport risks, health risks etc.

Personnel risk

It should be noted that risk to personnel is mainly focused on fatality risk, or aspects that are vital for minimization of fatality risk (J. E. Vinnem 2007). In the oil and gas industry in Nigeria, people use the term ‘major accident’ as the criteria. The interpretation of ‘major accidents’ is the accidents which has the potential to cause five fatalities or more. In reflecting these criteria, people take more attention on preventing fatality risks. The frequency of impairment is the term used to express the risk aspects the safety of personnel.

Fatality risk

Fatality risk is the most serious consequences among all of the consequences in the case of offshore installation. There are a number of ways to express the fatality risk, such as platform fatality risk, individual risk, and group risk and f-N curve, The following are the main characteristics that are used in order to form the example shown in table:

a) The average number of persons on the platform is 220

b) Each person has an annual number of 3000 exposure hours offshore.

c) Elements of risk are shown in table:

The following figures which are published by HSE could give us a general impress of fatality risk in offshore installations (Offshore safety statistics bulletin 2006/2007).

Environment risk

The environmental risk from offshore installations is dominated by the largest spills...