First Annual Workshop on Safety and Integrity Management of Operations in Harsh Environments

On March 19-20, approximately 120 researchers and practitioners came together at the Sheraton Hotel Newfoundland in St. John’s for the first annual Workshop on Safety and Integrity Management of Operations in Harsh Environments.

The two-day workshop focused on two important themes related to the management of natural resource development in harsh and frontier areas, namely safety and asset integrity. The main topics of the workshop included safety and integrity challenges in harsh environments and potential solutions; corrosion under insulation; winterization methods; evacuation and rescue issues and methods to address them; production, processing and transportation challenges and potential solutions and risk assessment and management challenges and potential solutions.

The workshop was the result of collaborative efforts from Memorial University, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), RDC Newfoundland and Labrador, American Bureau of Shipping, Vale Newfoundland and Wood Group of Companies.

The lessons learned from the workshop are published in two conference papers:

Safety Challenges in Harsh Environments: Lessons Learned. Presented in 1st CCPS Asia-Pacific Conference on Process Safety. Qingdao, China, September 4-5, 2013.

Integrity Challenges in Harsh Environments: Lessons Learned and Potential Development Strategies. To be presented in IChemE Hazards 24. Edinburgh, UK, May 7-9, 2014.