Managing Technological Accidents: Two Blowouts in the North Sea; Proceedings of an IIASA Workshop on Blowout Management, April 1978

A blowout consists of a sudden and uncontrolled release from a well of large amounts of high-pressure gas or gas-oil and carries with it attendant risks of explosion, fire, and pollution; loss of life, equipment and the hydrocarbon fuel itself are all possible. More generally, a blowout may be characterized as a low-probability, high-risk event which may occur when a complex technological process goes out of control. Drilling for oil and gas in the hazardous environment of the North Sea has, over the years, given rise to great efforts to improve safety standards and operating procedures. By the mid-70s many observers felt that blowouts in the area were extremely unlikely if not impossible. Nevertheless, 1977 saw two blowouts in the North Sea, one on the Ekofisk Bravo platform in the Norwegian sector and the other involving an exploratory well being drilled by the Maersk Explorer rig in the Danish sector. The blowouts caused great concern to the general public, to the governments involved, and within the oil industry, and prompted extensive reevaluations of equipment, procedures, and the general philosophy of accident prevention. The management or prevention of such incidents, whose causes lie at the man-technology interface, was the central theme of a Workshop at IIASA which brought together experts on the environment, representatives of the oil industry, and spokesmen for governments and their associated regulatory bodies. This volume is based on the proceedings of the Workshop and is divided into two main parts: the first is an overview of the blowout problem and the second contains the papers presented by the Workshop participants