scope:

INTRODUCTION AND SCOPE

This Recommended Practice provides guidelines for the qualification of personnel engaged in installing, inspecting, testing, and routinely maintaining surface and subsurface devices that are used to insure safety and to prevent pollution during the production of oil and gas on offshore platforms. These guidelines are intended for training courses with well-defined curricula and include recommendations for testing to assure that a candidate is qualified when he completes a course. A diploma shall be issued to the candidate upon successful completion of the testing phase.

The value of work experience is acknowledged in these guidelines by dividing the courses into instructional and testing phases. A candidate may take only the testing phase if he has the required experience prerequisites. If he demonstrates proficiency in all classes of safety devices, he will be issued a diploma identical to those issued to candidates who first take the instructional phase and then pass the testing phase.

The instructional and testing phases are further divided into two categories - surface safety devices and subsurface safety devices. A candidate may earn diplomas in either or both of these categories.

This Recommended Practice (RP) complements API RP 14B (Recommended Practice for Design, Installation, and Operation of Subsurface Safety Valve Systems), API RP 14C (Recommended Practice for Analysis, Design, Installation and Testing of Basic Surface Safety Systems on Offshore Production Platforms), API Spec 14D (Specification for Wellhead Surface Safety Valves for Offshore Service), and a number of references are made to those RP's and Specifications.