This paper describes an approach adopted in monitoring Safety Critical Barriers (SCBs) associated with oil and gas production in Total's AKPO Floating Production and Storage Offloading (FPSO) facility located in OML 130 offshore Nigeria. The scenario-based Technological Risk Assessment study of AKPO FPSO provides a catalogue of major risks, with risk reduction measures developed into standard safety barriers and in some cases incorporated into existing barriers to improve their reliability. There are a total number of 366 SCBs being monitored using the approach described in this paper. The status of SCBs described as"Very Good", "Good", "Fair"or "Poor"is determined by systematically aggregating the test and maintenance results of relevant equipment items (functional locations), as well as results from audit checks of operational and management activities of the SCBs. The status of SCBs, so determined, is quantified and used to determine the risk portrait of the installation. Over 8,500 functional locations are linked to barriers based on their potential to contribute towards the control of one or more of the fourteen major accident scenarios identified from the major risk study. Test and maintenance records from UNISUP (Unified Information System for Upstream) are exported to a visual risk assessment tool for aggregation, based on a pre-set logic, to determine the status of SCBs that are dependent on equipment items. The application of this methodology enables the timely identification of barrier defects at the level of functional locations for a given safety critical equipment. The visual risk management tool deployed for the implementation of this process has proven to be of great benefit: i) diagrammatic view of potential accident path; ii) quick identification of failing barriers; iii) estimation of extent of failures in barriers; iv) understanding of the criticality of barriers in relation to a potential accident path; v) dynamic profiling of risks based on changes in barrier status. The implementation of this methodology contribute to savings in resources spent on safety inspections and audits by leveraging the information provided on the status of the barriers to determine the best approach and areas to assess during such exercises. In addition, records such as number of unavailable barriers per period, frequency of barrier failures etc can be obtained and used as metrics to determine Integrity Management performance on an operating facility.

Exploration and production of oil and gas exposes workers to some inherent health hazards associated with use of chemicals, exposure to physical and biological agents and poor ergonomic design of work places. Health hazards and the associated occupational illnesses can be easily overlooked in a regular HSE Management system since health hazards are not always apparent and may take many years for the effects to manifest in workers. Putting in place an effective risk assessment tool and an employee health management system will help employers to answer the very important question -when, where, how and to what hazard is an employee potentially exposed at work? An industrial hygiene risk assessment methodology was developed and tested in an oil and gas exploration and production multinational company in Nigeria. The method entails the systematic assessment of the potential risk of tasks resulting from the intrinsic hazard of chemical products and other hazardous agents (noise, radiations, extreme temperatures, biohazards, etc), and estimating the duration and frequency of tasks carried out by Similar Exposure Groups (SEGs) of workers. The method also estimates the protection means available in the workplace and hence calculates the residual risk to be managed by employers. The results of the risk assessment exercise are consolidated in a Risk Assessment File document detailing action plans to mitigate high potential residual risks. To facilitate this risk assessment process and enhance employee health data archiving and retrieval, a database management and risk assessment software was employed. The software includes Chemical/MSDS management, Human Resources information, Risk Assessment/Estimation, Personnel Monitoring and link to Occupational Medical data. The use of the software has greatly enhanced access to employee exposure assessments records and overall management of occupational health of the Company's workforce.