Risk Management in Offshore Oil and Gas Industry
Discuss about the Development Of Industry Performance Metrics For Offshore Oil.
Offshore oil and gas industry is ranked as one of the most hazardous industries, where risk is not managed appropriately. The combination of product under high pressure, powerful equipment, remote, hard to get into the location and unpredictable weather results in health and safety issue for the employees of offshore oil and gas industries (Hammer et al. 2016). Moreover, apart from technical safety risk, the employees of such industry in Abudhabi, UAE also face the occupational safety risk, personal safety risk and environmental safety risk. However, assurance of health and safety for the employees in offshore oil and gas industry enhance their job performance level. This research study will conduct research importance of health and safety on the job performance level of the offshore oil and gas industry of Abudhabi, UAE.
Upstream oil and gas operations in offshore oil and gas industry incorporates the activities like conventional oil and gas production, exploration and drilling, processing and extraction of ‘tar sands’, pipeline operation and heavy oil processing. Such critical activities often result in health and safety issue for the employees in this industry (Shea et al. 2016). However, health and safety risks may lead to workplace injuries, which can hamper the performance level of the employees. Moreover, health and safety management is the vital constituent in the offshore oil and gas industry (Fabius et al. 2016). Fixing workplace hazards can facilitate the employees to work at their best level through each day without taking time for healing any workplace injury.
Oil and gas industry of Abu Dhabi is rapidly rising in Abudhabi, UAE. Abudhabi is considered as the largest among the seven emirates, which holds reserve of 92.2 billion barrels of oil (Harhara, Singh and Hussain 2015). The country has also ranked among the top 10 biggest oil and gas reserves holders globally. The production of oil and gas in Abudhabi has been stood at almost 3 million bopd, which fortified the status of UAE as the 4th biggest producer in OPEC (Rui et al. 2017). The offshore production of oil and gas has been increased the volume of overall production of oil or gas in Abudhabi, UAE.
Occupational safety and personal safety is all about protecting the mental and physical health of the employees and ensuring their wellbeing in the workplace. The employees of oil and gas industry are always having chance of exposed to critical occupational and technical risk leading to their workplace injury. With the rising concept of offshore drilling, the employees of Abudhabi in UAE are having high chances of major occupational health and safety risk, while drilling the wellbore below the seabed (Grossmeier et al. 2016). However, the administrative departments of the oil and gas companies in Abudhabi are not prompt enough towards providing adequate safety measures for the health wellbeing of the employees (Loeppke et al. 2015). In this way, the increasing injuries of the employees are hampering their performance level of the employees of this industry.
Upstream Oil and Gas Operations in Offshore Industry
Over the years, sever scholars has conducted their research on identifying the health and safety risks associated with the employees in the offshore activities of oil and gas industry. However, such scholars have not focused on assessing the impact of health and safety management on the performance level of the employees. This research study will conduct research on demonstrating the significance of health and safety on the job performance of the employee working in the offshore oil and gas industry of Abudhabi, UAE. The study will also explore the significance of occupational, personal and environmental safety for the employees in oil and gas industry as compared to technical safety.
The aim of the research is to explore the significance of health and safety on the job performance level of the employees working the offshore of the oil and gas industry in Abudhabi, UAE.
- To explore the importance of health and safety on the job performance level of the employees working the offshore of the oil and gas industry in Abudhabi, UAE
- To assess the risks associated with technical, Occupational, personal and environmental safety aspects of the employees of the employees working in the offshore of oil and gas industry in Abudhabi, UAE
- To recognize the intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting the safety of the employees in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in Abudhabi
- To provide effective health and safety management strategies for the employees in the offshore of oil and gas industry in Abudhabi, UAE
- What is the significance of health and safety on the job performance level of the employees working the offshore of the oil and gas industry in Abudhabi, UAE?
- What are the risks associated with technical, Occupational, personal and environmental safety aspects of the employees of the employees working in the offshore of oil and gas industry in Abudhabi, UAE?
- What are the intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting the safety of the employees in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in Abudhabi
- How oil and gas industry can provide effective health and safety measurement to the employees working in offshore of Abudhabi, UAE
Employee health and safety measures are the legal responsibilities of the employers for ensuring health and safety of the employees at their workplaces. Gopang et al. (2017) pointed out that the human resource professionals of the organizations are highly responsible for leading health wellbeing of the employees through avoiding risky job condition. Such professionals also establish administrative procedures, which encourage the employees towards reporting the unsafe work practice or work condition to the supervisors without any fear. On the other hand, Sheehan et al. (2016) opined that human resource policies are even associated with coordinating first aid training and other provision of first aid to the employees for protecting their health from unsafe working condition. Maintaining proper and safe working environment is the prime thing in ensuring employees’ health and safety at their workplaces. It is also the responsibilities of the employers to provide adequate health and safety benefits for protecting the health of the employees from workplace hazards.
Technical safety of the employees ensures well functioning of the technical equipments used in the workplace. Moreover, Van Gordon et al. (2014) opined that the employers are responsible for ensuring well functioning of the technical equipments used in the workplaces. The employees of oil and gas industry are always provided with adequate training for handling the technical equipments in a safe manner. Moreover, the employers of this industry are to monitor the well-functioning of boiler system, cranes, electrical work, equipments for drilling, pressure system, elevated devices and many others. On the other hand, Aikens et al. (2014) stated that the goal of occupational health and safety is to foster healthy and safety working environment at the workplace for ensuring health wellbeing of the employees at the workplaces. It promotes the safety of the employees through enforcing different laws and regulations towards protecting the employees from workplace hazards.
The Rise of Oil and Gas Industry in Abu Dhabi, UAE
Personal safety is associated with training provided to the employees for protecting themselves from the unsafe working condition. The employees are also provided with the freedom for raising their voices against any unsafe working condition. Furthermore, Beus, McCord and Zohar (2016) mentioned that environmental safety deals with creation of systematic approach for complying with the environmental regulations like managing air emissions or wastes for protecting environment. In this way, the protection of environment through improving the air quality and other factors would improve the health condition of the employees at their workplace.
It is true that technical safety is extremely important for protecting the health of the employees from severe health injuries caused from the unsafe technical equipments. However, occupational safety is also important for protecting the employees from workplace hazards like chemicals, fire, moving machinery parts, drilling fluids, silica and many others (Cunningham, Sinclair and Schulte 2014). On the other hand, the employers of oil and gas industry are also responsible for providing personal training to employees so that they can effectively protect themselves from unsafe working condition.
Various intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect the safety condition of the employees at their workplace. In case of intrinsic factor, the commitment and obligation of the employees for their responsibilities can highly affect the safety condition of the employees at their workplace. Moreover, the employees working in the offshore of oil and gas industry must be responsible enough to perform a particular job as per the rules and regulations of safety requirement. Ghasemi et al. (2015) stated that the possibilities of the employees towards using their trained skills may reduce the chance of being affected through workplace hazards. Moreover, lack of proper skills among the employees to deal with the workplace hazards can results in poor safety condition at offshore areas.
On the other hand, Odle-Dusseau et al. (2016) opined that in case of extrinsic factor, physical working condition of the employees of the workplace highly affect the safety condition of the employees. Moreover, poor working environment in the oil and gas industry leads to poor health condition of the employees. Furthermore, Pescud et al. (2015) mentioned that the immediate supervisors of the employees also directly impact of the health condition of the employees at their workplace. Moreover, the inability of the supervisors to convey adequate safety measure among the employees of oil and gas industry increased their chance of being exposed to unsafe working condition.
Importance of Health and Safety Measures in Workplace
Workplace health and safety measures ensure higher productivity of the employees at their workplace. Gopang et al. (2017) pointed out that healthy employees always feel safe and comfortable with the working environment. Hence, such employees are always more productive than the others having being injured at the workplaces. Safe working environment encourages the employees towards being more productive having a feeling of comfort. On the other hand, Beus, McCord and Zohar (2016) opined that benefits for health and safety make the employees more loyal to their organizations. Hence, they are highly willing to work more than others, who do not get any health benefits from their organizations.
Maintenance of health and safety measures and fixation of workplace hazards keep the employees working all the day long without taking any extra time for healing the workplace injuries caused by the workplace accidents. In this way, decreasing rate of workplace injuries reduces the numbers of leaves taken by the employees for healing their injuries. Hence, less leaves taken by the employees ultimately increased their rate of productivity. Furthermore, Pescud et al. (2015) pointed out that increasing rate of workplace accidents leads to fear among the employees to work in the same organization. Hence, it can increase the turnover rate of the employees having the fear of repeated workplace accidents. In this way, increasing rate of employee turnover reduced the overall performance level of the employees. Hence, maintaining health and safety of the employees in turn increases the productivity level of the employees.
Research approach depicts the best technique of collecting most accurate information concerning the research topic. Two common research approaches in conducting research are like inductive and deductive approach. In inductive approach, it is needed to form new sort of research theories and models relevant to research topic for assembling detailed research information. However, in deductive approach, it is allowed to apply previous theories and models for gathering accurate information concerning the research field (Lewis 2015). This research will use deductive approach because of its ability to save the time and budget of the research through allowing the application of previous research theories and models.
Research design is an effective way of having proper perceptive the research topic and conducting the research in effective manner. The most commonly used research designs are exploratory, explanatory and descriptive design. Explanatory research recognizes the link among different research variables and defines the relationship of the research variables on each other. Exploratory design assesses the background and associated current issues of the research topic (Choy 2014). On the other hand, descriptive design describes the actual meaning of the research topic. This research topic will use exploratory design that will help in assessing the issues associated with the research topic.
Technical Safety vs Occupational, Personal, and Environmental Safety
Data collection seems to be extremely significant for the collection of authentic and detailed research information. Two sorts of data collection methods are mostly used in conducting research, which are namely primary method and secondary method. In secondary method, information is collected from the secondary sources such as authentic journals, books, magazines, websites and others (Dumay and Cai 2015). In this research study, secondary data will be used for framing effective literature review. This research study will be actually dependent on primary method data collection, where data will be collected using qualitative technique. In qualitative technique effective interview will be arranged with the managers of oil and gas companies in Abudhabi, UAE.
In order to conduct interview session, 5 mangers of randomly selected oil and gas companies of Abudhabi will be selected. The sample will be selected through simple random technique, where the selected participants will be gathered at their convenient place for collecting data in effective manner management.
Data analysis is mandatory in research process for converting the general data collected from the research participants into specific information valuable of leading authentic research result (McCusker and Gunaydin 2015). In this research study, observational method and narrative method will be used for analyzing the collected data from the research participants. In observational method, the behavior of the selected managers will be evaluated for assessing their perspectives. Furthermore, in narrative method, the transcripts generated in the interview session with the managers will be evaluated in descriptive manner for reaching at authentic research result.
The secondary sources used in the literature review demonstrate that employee health and safety is extremely importance for the performance level of the employees. Moreover, the healthy employees at the workplace better perform quite better than the injured employees without taking any time of healing their injuries. On the other hand, the health benefits provided to the employees encourage them to be highly loyal to their job role leading to increased productivity.
Figure 1: Research Timescale
(Source: Created by Author)
Reference List
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Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors Affecting Employee Safety
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