Improved vessel safety in offshore supply services

The supply services in the North Sea are a working place with a high level of personnel risk mainly in occupational accidents. Supply vessels, anchor handling vessels and stand-by vessels are operating in a harsh environment in an integrated logistic chain including offshore installations, mobile installations and shore bases. An ongoing research project for a Norwegian oil company addresses the risk for the vessels in the supply services and will develop a risk model that aims at giving decision support in the process of selecting the correct risk reducing measures. This paper describes available methodology for risk analysis and their application in the maritime and offshore industry. Further it discusses the similarities and differences between the vessels in the supply services and the rest of the maritime and offshore industry with regard to traditions, working conditions, operations and regulations. Finally, it gives some guidelines for choosing a risk methodology for the vessels in the supply services. The methodology will be based on task-analysis for the most exposed operations on the supply and anchor handling vessels.