Developing a framework for robust safety management in Ghana’s upstream oil and gas industry

Horbah, F

Abstract

Ghana, as an emerging oil and gas producing country, is expected to have an improved, or a new approach to manage safety to prevent major hazard incidents in the industry. Given the country’s experience of poor risk governance regimes before the emergence of the upstream oil and gas industry, it has become imperative to develop a robust safety management regime that can deal with the complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity of risk associated with upstream oil and gas operations. The current safety management regime is underpinned by an engineering risk assessment approach which is inherently inadequate in handling uncertainties of knowledge and potential surprises relative to major hazard incidents. This study aims at developing a framework for robust safety management in Ghana’s upstream oil and gas industry. The study followed design science research as its methodological approach, which involved six data collection stages. Data collection methods included documents, quantitative safety data, questionnaire surveys, semi-structured interviews, workshop and focus groups. It must be indicated that the questionnaires recorded a 70.7% — response rate of 300 samples. There were 14 participants involved in the semi-structured interviews, 12 participated in the workshop and 9 for the focus group validation. Data analysis included content analysis, descriptive statistical analysis, factor analysis, and multiple regression analysis. The key findings of the review of the safety statutory and regulatory documents indicated that Ghana’s regulatory regime is not robust as there is incoherence and limited scope of the existing regulatory and institutional framework. Main findings of the analysis of the safety statistical data shown a rising trend of incidents mainly triggered by hydrocarbon releases, struck by/impact, falls from height/dropped objects and equipment failure. The key findings of the questionnaire surveys indicated that safety climate factors such as safety supervision, management of change, safety empowerment, safety policies, safety rules and procedures, safety behaviour, safety priority, supportive environment, equipment maintenance and safety communication have a predictive influence on incidents risks. The semi-structured interviews indicated weak risk governance in the industry. The critical safety barriers to the implementation of safety management systems related to poor safety culture issues and lack of investment in safety research and development. A conceptual framework was developed and evaluated to improve safety management in Ghana’s oil and gas industry. The study contributed knowledge towards improving the management of complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity of risk associated with the upstream oil and gas industry in Ghana.

Citation

Horbah, F. Developing a framework for robust safety management in Ghana’s upstream oil and gas industry. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jun 15, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 15, 2020
• Award Date: Apr 30, 2020