scope:

General

These Guidance Notes provide an overview of the process for identifying and assessing a variety of accidental loading scenarios that can be experienced by offshore oil and gas facilities with an emphasis on minimizing health and safety, environment, and facility risks. While a wide range of potential accidents exists, the focus here is on key events that can affect the structural performance of the facility, namely ship collisions, dropped objects, fires, and blast loadings. The same conceptual process can be used with other accidental loading scenarios, such as the survival of permanent mooring systems under extreme environmental conditions. The guidance highlights activities associated with the assessment including:

i) Accidental loading scenario hazard evaluation overview

ii) Ship collision hazards

iii) Dropped object hazards

iv) Fire hazards

v) Blast hazards

These Guidance Notes are not intended to serve as a design or assessment standard, but rather to highlight the primary activities relating to accidental loading assessment to promote more efficient and safer design and operation of the facility.