HC Deb 19 June 1975 vol 893 cc502-3W
Mr. Skinner

asked the Secretary of State for Energy when the report on the loss of the drilling barge "Transocean III" will be published; whether the report established the cause of the accident and what lessons have been learned from the incident.

Mr. Benn

The report, prepared by my Department's Petroleum Production Inspectorate, is published today and copies have been placed in the Library.

The report finds that the loss—in which there were no casualties to personnel—was caused by the failure of rings of wedges to fulfil their purpose of restraining the movement of the vertical columns which supported the barge in the water. Since the effect that movement of the wedges would have upon the structure of the barge was not appreciated by the operators, the manager and barge engineers had not been informed of the need to keep the wedges firmly in position.

The report makes four recommendations. The first and most important, that certifying authorities should be reminded of their obligations to make a critical scrutiny of all design details, is implemented under the provisions of the Offshore Installations (Construction and Survey) Regulations 1974, made on 17th February 1974, which require all offshore installations operating on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf on or after 31st August 1975 to have a valid certificate of fitness issued by a certifying authority appointed by the Secretary of State.

The second recommendation, that the operations manual for each installation contain information on the purpose and operation of every part of the structure on which the integrity of the installation depends, has been implemented under the above regulations. The operations manual is a necessary part of the documentation which has to be submitted to the certifying authority as part of an application for a certificate of fitness.

The third recommendation, that all non-essential personnel be taken to safety as soon as an installation suffers serious damage, will be covered by regulations at present in draft.

The final recommendation, that a course of training for managers of offshore installations leading to mandatory qualifications be devised as soon as possible, has been put to the United Kingdom Offshore Operations Association to consider the feasibility of such a course.