Guidance for barrier management in the petroleum industry

Abstract

The purpose of this report is to provide a practical guidance on barrier management with focus on establishing systems and solutions for maintaining the function of the barriers throughout the lifetime of an offshore or onshore petroleum facility. It covers guidance on how to identify and define barriers and barrier elements, how to formulate performance requirements for the barrier elements and how to monitor the status of the barriers and verify that the requirements are fulfilled during operation. This includes examples of approaches, methods and specific tools for barrier management. Operational and organisational barriers and barrier elements are emphasized, since main industry focus so far has been on technical barriers. The report has been developed as part of the PETROMAKS innovation project "Tool and guidelines for overall barrier management and reduction of major accident risk in the petroleum industry", funded by the Norwegian Research Council and the members of the PDS forum.