Enhancing Red Zone Safety in the Drilling Industry: A New Metric for Quantifying Risk Exposure

Abstract There can never be enough useful tools in the offshore drilling industry's safety management systems when pursuing the furtherance of crew safety while improving operational performance. As Transocean worked on this goal, it was determined the exposure rate of personnel during critical operations was not being taken into consideration to show the overall impact technology has in reducing personnel risk. Additionally, no industry established metric existed to quantify personnel exposure and reduction once a new technology was introduced. To address this, Transocean established a new metric called the Red Zone Exposure Rate (RZER) to assist in quantifying the baseline and reduced risk once new technologies are introduced. Utilizing real-time location systems, such as HaloGuard®, paves the way to further minimize personnel exposure to the red zone by evaluating the adherence and effectiveness of operational procedures and automates the measurement of the RZER metric. Other technologies designed to automate operations and move personnel away from the red zone, include Robotic Riser System and Rotary Multi-Tool, all of which reduce the need for manual intervention in high-risk zones. The RZER metric can now be utilized to quantify the benefit each of these technologies provide in reducing the red zone exposure rate to personnel on the rig on which the technology is deployed. This paper covers the development of the new RZER metric that offers industry-wide application, how the new metric can be leveraged and practical applications for the metric across the industry to help achieve the goal of minimizing red zone exposure.