Working on an oil rig is a dangerous and difficult job and besides the long hours, and tough living conditions, you must also be away from home for long periods of time. The potential for boredom to set in is something that employees have to fight, as well as the tendency to become complacent when it comes to safety procedures. Recently in the wake of the tropical Cyclone Billy off the Australian and Indonesian Coasts, one oil producing vessel was caught off guard as its operator failed to pull up its anchors in time to vacate the area and avoid the cyclone. The vessel weathered most of the cyclone until its last anchor broke and it made its way to safety. No one was injured in the incident, although this might not have been the case if the storm had been worse.
With this recent event, the NOPSA, or National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority, issued various additional safety alerts to warn all oil rigs and oil tankers anchored offshore about cyclones and encouraged them to have various Cyclone Response Procedures in place. Preparation and planning are the main aspects that need to be addressed in all Cyclone Response Procedures, and with most of the tropical lows turning into cyclones, it was ascertained that there are not enough cyclone drills and oil rig training exercisesfor these events. The following scenarios were pin pointed as the key areas to work on:
- There needs to be designated safe mooring areas for oil tankers and oil rigs
- There must be escape route or sail away restrictions for all vessels
- There must be adequate responses for cyclones and tropical lows approaching from various directions, which incorporate all forecast predictions including the worst case scenario.
- All oil tankers and off shore oil rigs must have helicopter availability.
- All the key construction activities must be analyzed for their required evacuation preparation times.
With the many dangerous areas and duties on board oil tankers and oil rigs, an organization like the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority has an imperative role to play in making sure that all employees are safe and receive the correct kind of insurance and adequate salaries. Aside from that, the NOPSA performs investigations and analysis on various oil rig and oil tanker companies to ensure that they are working according to all the correct regulations so that they have less accidents and incidents on board their vessels.
Oil rig jobs and oil tanker jobsare very safety orientated and one of the most important aspects that employers look for is physical fitness, as you will be lifting heavy equipment and working with heavy, dangerous machinery. Another safety requirement for working on oil rigs is that you have to be fairly young. Many oil rigs and tankers replace their older crew members fairly often, so there are always lots of jobs available for those with college degrees and for high school graduates as entry level positions.
For the on board safety tasks, the crew has to complete various maintenance documents and forms for the benefit of the NOPSA and other safety administrative bodies. This includes general maintenance, machinery and equipment checks, supply checks, and adequate on the job employee training and safety procedures. The entire vessel is color codes according to which safety checks have been recently completed, and which pieces of machinery and equipment are still to be tested with the state of the art devices. There are also items that are forbidden to take on board such as alcohol, matches, weapons and other flammable products. Cell phones must be switched off and batteries from electrical items must be removed prior to coming onboard. All of these rules and regulations are to ensure maximum productivity and effective working conditions for all employees.
Another aspect to ensure the safety of all employees is to make sure that working hours are not exceeded. When you become tired, especially in a physically demanding job such as those on board offshore vessels, accidents and mistakes are more common. Most oil rig employees work for about 8 hours a day 5 days a week on shore, while offshore shifts are about 12 hours 7 days per week with time on shore via helicopter whenever possible.
One of the very necessary oil and gas jobs that you can get is as a Rig Safety and Training Coordinator. This position is one of the high paying ones that you can search and apply for in the Oil Job Finder Job Center once you become a member. You will find that this kind of job is always in demand considering the very strict nature of the oil rig business.
Another form of safety training for oil rig employees is via a video documentary. These have proven to be very popular forms of training and have been successfully implemented into all oil and gas industry training protocols. These videos are designed specifically by petroleum companies and safety administrations to ensure that correct protocols and procedures are followed on board oil rigs, oil tankers, petroleum pipelines, and at oil refineries among others.
If you want to learn more about how to get jobs on oil rigs and what kind of safety training you need and procedures you must follow, you can also check out the oil jobs FAQ section on Oil Job Finder.
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