BSEE and NASA have developed a draft guide for the use of Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) in the offshore oil and gas industry. The draft PRA Guide is the next step in evaluating PRA as a potential risk assessment tool for operators in a less-understood offshore environment for new technologies. In 2016, BSEE and NASA entered into an interagency agreement to, among other joint goals, evaluate the use of PRA in the offshore oil and gas industry.
PRA is a quantitative risk assessment technique initially developed within the nuclear energy industry and is used by NASA to model risk for human spaceflight in major initiatives including the International Space Station and the Orion deep space exploration spacecraft. The technique enables identification and mitigation of low-probability sequences of events that can lead to high-consequence outcomes.
The BSEE/NASA PRA Guide is not a policy document and does not discuss regulatory requirements; rather, it discusses particular modeling techniques that have been found useful for decision-making in complex and high-hazard operations. In this draft document, certain sections of the PRA Guide are incomplete. NASA is currently working to produce an initial, “generic PRA” for a deepwater drilling facility, which may be incorporated into PRA Guide revisions.
Our intent is to continue to solicit industry involvement as we evaluate PRA’s suitability and applicability to the offshore oil and gas industry. In concert with the oil and gas industry, we will evaluate whether PRA provides additional insight to better manage risks associated with offshore activities.