Advanced Training Tool For Offshore Safety

Para-rescue pioneers who developed mobile offshore safety training launch innovative safety training system.

Rick Parish, the founder and former chairman of Marine & Offshore Group (M&O Group), which pioneered mobile offshore safety training for the oil and gas industries in the 1990s, has announced that his company Aquarius Global has launched a new mobile safety training system that aims to raise the standards for offshore safety training globally.

Mobile Offshore Safety Training (MOST) – a subsidiary of Parish’s investment and holding company Aquarius Global – has developed the Insitu system that uses technology and simulations with advanced equipment, techniques and procedures, coupled with excellent safety training instruction. 

The new mobile safety training system prepares all personnel operating on oil platforms, oil rigs and drilling decks for a wide range of emergency safety training whilst offshore and onshore. Critically, it also provides valuable safety training while personnel are being transported between the offshore and onshore installations, preparing for a range of emergency scenarios, ranging from helicopters ditching, survival mode in the sea to emergency life raft deployment and failure.

The specialist modular training platform means that any configuration can be constructed to the client’s specific requirements, from a basic training facility to a more advanced full-scale option. The training plan forms can also include dedicated classroom facilities, if required, with any combination of training scenarios delivered to the Offshore Petroleum Industry Training Organisation (OPITO) standard.

The standard training centre resource includes: a 10m heated pool complete with a helicopter underwater escape training (HUET) system and heli-winch simulator; a totally enclosed motor propelled survival craft (TEMPSC) emergency lifeboat training module including a separate pool with boarding platforms; fire extinguisher and self-rescue module including smokehouse; equipment servicing facilities; and pool pumps, heaters and filtration equipment.

Advanced options include a smokehouse and self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) rescue module and confined space training and rescue module.

Fast Deployment Globally

Insitu’s modular system allows it to be assembled and disassembled for rapid deployment with specialist training teams anywhere in the world. It comes pre-loaded with more than 200 safety training courses developed by one of the world’s largest offshore training companies. It can be delivered and operational within three months (subject to operational requirements) anywhere in the world, unlike fixed-structure safety training centres, which take an average of 24 months to develop and build. The modular system allows it to be fully scalable from a small system of three pods up to a more advanced option of 10 pods, catering for every emergency scenario on an offshore oil platform or drilling rig.

Personnel receive the very highest standards of safety training delivered from a team of highly experienced instructors with over 27 years specialist expertise to become qualified at a global standard and, depending on the client’s requirements, for it to be OPITO-approved.

Commenting on the new safety training system, Rick Parish said: “Train, learn, rehearse. Train, learn, rehearse. Those vital words can make all the difference in offshore safety training, and which one day could save many lives. The oil and gas industry, by its very nature, is extremely dangerous and hazardous because the work environment is a floating structure in the sea with explosive and flammable substances and machinery under pressure.

“When a serious incident such as a fire, explosion or emergency occurs, the space in which to tackle that incident is also dynamic and fast-changing. The safety training provided needs to reflect that dynamic and prepare the workforce for
all eventualities and outcomes.”

The Bigger Picture

The impact on human life and the environment resulting from an accident on an oil rig or drilling platform also cannot be ignored. Incidents such as the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster in the North Sea which killed 167 people, the Alexander L Kielland disaster in the North Sea, where the platform tilted 30°, eventually capsizing, and of the 212 workers on board only 89 survived, starkly illustrate this point.

In more recent times, the Deepwater Horizon tragedy not only resulted in a tragic loss of life but was associated with one of the biggest environmental disasters of the last 50 years that has cost in excess of US$65 billion to clean up. This catastrophic accident had a significant bearing on the lives of all people who lived around the shores of the Gulf, and not only those who worked in the Energy Sector.

Parish continued: “M&O Group has played a pivotal and leading role in the development of the mobile offshore safety training systems for the last three decades in the oil and gas sectors. These tragic events serve as a reminder to us of the vital necessity that all offshore personnel receive the very highest level of safety training with regular refresher programs.

The new Insitu safety training system provides clients with a truly versatile mobile safety training system that is futureproofed for offshore safety training and provides rapid capability.”