Guidance material
Resources Safety protects employees in the resources industry by administering the safety and structural integrity provisions of the petroleum, pipeline and geothermal legislation, and providing, through the Petroleum Safety Branch, specialised safety and risk management advice to the Department of Mines and Petroleum as part of its approval processes. Functions include:
- Occupational safety and health regulatory services
- Technical assessment, review and acceptance of all safety documentation pertaining to:
- Pipeline operations
- Petroleum operations
- Geothermal energy operations
- Offshore petroleum operations
- Diving operations
- Specialist advice, compliance auditing, inspections and investigations, and
- Promoting safety and health outcomes, including education and providing information.
For more information on guidelines for Petroleum Safety visit the Resources Safety > Publications > Petroleum and Geothermal Safety section.
Guidelines
Information sheets
Safety case (SC) and safety management system (SMS) overview
The pipeline and facility SC emphasises consultation, employee participation and a goal-setting approach to safety, rather than prescriptive rules.
A safety case is a detailed document that outlines the types of safety studies undertaken, the results of those studies and the safety management arrangements.
The SC is divided into three distinct, but related parts:
- Facility description
- Formal safety assessment
- Safety management system(SMS).
Some SMS elements are:
- Description of operation
- Acknowledgment of OSH obligations and how they are met
- Risk assessment of the operation
- Controls and measures for ongoing management of safety
- Systems for maintaining structural integrity
- Health management
- Emergency preparedness and response
- Systems for review and improvement.
An objective of both the SC and SMS documents is to demonstrate, through written description, that a pipeline licensee or a petroleum operator or geothermal operator has a robust management system in place. These documents must be capable of systematically and continually identifying hazards, assessing them, and eliminating or minimising the risks to people, to a level that is as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP).
Risk assessment methods
The range of techniques suitable for identification and assessing the safety and integrity risks associated with a petroleum, pipeline or geothermal activity are wide ranging. The nature of the assessments selected by the licensee or operator should be derived from the risk management system developed in line with national standard AS/NZS 31,000 - 2009. From the International Standards Organisation there is an accompanying standard, ISO 31,010 - 2009, which describes a range of risk assessment techniques for occupation and process safety matters.
The minimum requirement, and/or industry standard, for risk assessment may be established in the design or operations standards for the particular industry. The Pipeline Committee of Standards Australia (ME/38), incorporated in AS2885 (Part 1 Issue 2007) a uniform methodology for risk identification and assessment of risks associated with pipelines. A qualitative approach was adopted in this standard, whereby threats to the pipeline integrity are systematically identified, and corresponding risks assessed throughout its entire length. This approach is based on AS/NZS 4360 (now AS/NZS 31000-2009) and can be applied to all petroleum and geothermal operations as a method to satisfy the requirements of the legislation.
Standards are available from SAI Global.
Further discussion of acceptable risk management requirement under the legislation can be found in the Petroleum Pipeline Safety Case or Petroleum & Geothermal Safety Management System Guidelines.
Toolbox presentations
Legislation
Coming events
Resources Safety runs regular events in Perth and regional Western Australia.
There are no Petroleum Safety events scheduled at this stage, in the mean time take a look at other Upcoming DMP Events.
