Captain\ Eslam Zeid

Background

The offshore oil and gas industry contains many hazards due to the harsh working conditions, which made it necessary to develop specific safety standards for those working offshore, in order to act correctly in case of emergency.

The Offshore Support Vessels (OSV's)

plays a great role in responding to

any offshore emergency either by

helping in containing the emergency

or evacuating the installation.

ERRVA The Emergency Response and Rescue

Vessels Associations (ERRVA) was established to co-ordinate the common interests of the Owners and Operators in the future development of Emergency Response and Rescue Vessels (ERRV's), and to promote the safety and development of standby services.

Oil & Gas in Egypt The oil & gas industry started in Egypt in

the late 19th century; oil was discovered in Egypt making it the first oil country in the Middle East and North Africa region. It was followed a few years later by Iran and much later by Iraq, then Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and 60 years later by the UAE.

Stand By Vessels or ERRV The stand by vessel has two main tasks

the first one is to stand by outside the 500 meter zone for any emergency that can happen to the installation and any assistance required for evacuating personnel or controlling the emergency and in this case the vessel shall be able to reach the installation within 30 minutes,

the second task is to stand by inside the

500 meter zone which is called "Close

Standby" in order to be ready in case of a

Person Over Board occurs due to

scaffolding over water work, also to

conduct her part in an emergency drill

done by the installation.

The Emergency Response and Rescue

Vessels or ERRV's are specially

equipped vessels with specially trained

crews to conduct emergency response

and rescue missions, the ERRV's are

classified by the ERRVA into 3 groups:-

"Group A" ERRV is for installations manned

by particularly large numbers over 300.

"Group B" ERRV is for installations manned

by numbers of people between 20 and

300.

"Group C" ERRV is for installations manned

by very small numbers of people (e.g. up

to 20 persons).

Most ERRV's fall within Group B,

therefore Group B is considered to

be the standard ERRV's and Groups

A & C are exceptions.

ERRV in Egypt

Most of the vessels which are assigned

to stand by tasks do not meet the ERRVA

requirements either by the equipment

onboard, propulsion configuration nor

the ability to accommodate large

numbers of survivors,

however there are a few vessels which

meets these requirements as part of the

charterer contract requirement but these

vessels are conducting the safety stand

by tasks along with the usual supplying,

towing or anchor handling tasks and not

dedicated to safety stand by task alone.

Conclusion

The ERRV’s are dedicated for the

emergency response operation as they are

equipped with all the emergency controlling

equipment and their crews are trained for

these operations as we explained before.

Assigning one or more ERRV to an oil

field will highly improve the emergency

response during any accident and will

minimize the time of evacuation and

maximize the safety of operation.